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December 13, 2018 This flyover was produced from NASA images taken from orbit. The blue circle indicates the area the rover will likely land. The arcing hills in the center, about 1600 feet high, and are the rim of Jezero Crater. The goal of Mars 2020 is to learn whether life ever existed on Mars.… Continue reading Mars 2020 Target: Jezero Crater Flyover

February 19, 2019 Tour the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and see the Mars 2020 mission under construction. Project System Engineer Jennifer Trosper explains the hardware being built and tested, including the rover, descent stage, cruise stage, back shell, and heat shield. This NASA mission is preparing to launch to the Red… Continue reading Mars 2020 Rover Build Update

June 06, 2019 Can we fly on Mars?The laws of physics may say it’s near impossible, but actually flying a heavier-than-air vehicle on the Red Planet is much harder than that. NASA’s Mars 2020 mission will deliver a technology demonstration that will put the idea to the test — a helicopter that will perform controlled… Continue reading NASA Chopper Ready for a Spin on Mars

June 12, 2019 Crazy Engineering explores a technology demonstration riding aboard NASA’s Mars 2020 rover that’s straight out of science fiction novels like “The Martian.” It’s an oxygen generator called MOXIE, designed to convert carbon dioxide – which constitutes about 96% of the Martian atmosphere – into breathable oxygen. This technology could evolve into bigger… Continue reading Crazy Engineering: Making Oxygen on Mars with MOXIE

July 01, 2019 The Mars 2020 mission is facing the most challenging landing yet on the Red Planet. It will touch down on Feb. 18, 2021, in Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) expanse full of steep cliffs, boulder fields and other things that could boobytrap the landing. A new technology called Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN)… Continue reading Landing NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover with Terrain Relative Navigation

July 12, 2019 A team of engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, install the legs and wheels – otherwise known as the mobility suspension – on the Mars 2020 rover. The imagery for this accelerated time-lapse was taken on June 13, 2019, from a camera above the Spacecraft Assembly Facility’s High Bay… Continue reading Pit Crew for Mars: NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover Gets Some Wheels (time lapse)

August 27, 2019 The Mars 2020 Rover is preparing to launch to the Red Planet in July 2020, but it doesn’t have a name yet. We’re asking K-12 students across the United States to send in essays with their best name ideas by Nov. 1, 2019. Name NASA’s Next Mars Rover! (music) (Bekah S. Siegfriedt]… Continue reading Name NASA’s Next Mars Rover!

August 27, 2019 See NASA’s next Mars rover quite literally coming together inside a clean room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This behind-the-scenes look at what goes into building and preparing a rover for Mars, including extensive tests in simulated space environments, was captured from March to July 2019. The rover is expected to launch… Continue reading Building NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover

November 15, 2019 Could Mars ever have supported life? In the Australian Outback, scientists from NASA’s upcoming Mars 2020 mission and their counterparts from the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission visited the oldest convincing evidence for life on Earth to prepare for their own searches for signs of ancient life on Mars. The field lesson in… Continue reading Mars Science Teams Investigate Ancient Life in Australia

December 18, 2019 On Dec. 17, 2019, engineers took NASA’s next Mars rover for its first spin. The test took place in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This was the first drive test for the new rover, which will move to Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the… Continue reading First Drive Test of NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover