Perseverance Rover
Hunting for ancient life in Jezero Crater
Perseverance is a car-sized NASA rover that landed in Jezero Crater in February 2021. Billions of years ago Jezero held a lake and a river delta, making it one of the most promising places on Mars to look for chemical traces of ancient microbial life — the rover's central mission.
Perseverance is also the first step of a planned sample-return campaign: it drills finger-sized cores of rock and seals them in sterile tubes, building a cache that a future mission was meant to bring back to Earth. It carried two landmark technology demonstrations of its own — the Ingenuity helicopter, which made the first powered flight on another world, and MOXIE, which produced breathable oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.
In 2024 the rover sampled a rock nicknamed 'Cheyava Falls'; in September 2025 a peer-reviewed study reported the sample carries a potential biosignature — chemistry that could have a biological origin, though it is not proof of life. As of 2026 Perseverance is still working its way around the rim of Jezero Crater, even as the Mars Sample Return programme that would retrieve its tubes was effectively ended by U.S. budget decisions in early 2025.
Mission timeline
- 2020 · Jul 30Launch
Lifted off from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas V 541, bound for Mars with Ingenuity folded beneath its belly.
- 2021 · Feb 18Landing in Jezero Crater
The 'seven minutes of terror' descent ends with a Sky Crane lowering Perseverance onto an ancient lakebed.
- 2021 · Apr 19Ingenuity's first flight
The 1.8 kg helicopter rises into the thin Martian air — the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
- 2021 · Apr 20MOXIE makes oxygen
MOXIE converts carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure oxygen — a first for in-situ resource use.
- 2021 · Sep 6First rock core sealed
Perseverance cores and seals its first sample, 'Montdenier' from the rock 'Rochette', starting the cache.
- 2023 · JanThree Forks sample depot
The rover lays down a backup depot of sealed tubes — the first sample cache ever created on another world.
- 2024 · Jan 18Ingenuity's final flight
After 72 flights and nearly three years, a hard landing ends Ingenuity; NASA retires it on 25 January.
- 2024 · DecReaches the crater rim
Perseverance completes a months-long climb out of Jezero to explore older, scientifically rich rocks on the rim.
- 2025 · SepA potential biosignature
A peer-reviewed study reports the 'Sapphire Canyon' sample from rock 'Cheyava Falls' contains chemistry that may — but need not — be biological.
- TodayStill exploring the rim
The rover continues coring and scouting along Jezero's rim, its sample tubes awaiting a future ride home.
Active instruments
- Mast Camera Zoom
Zoomable stereo, colour cameras — the rover's main eyes for imaging and geology
- SuperCamSuperCam
Fires a laser to vaporise rock at a distance and reads its composition by spectroscopy
- Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry
Maps the chemistry of rock textures at grain scale to spot patterns left by life
- Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence
Hunts for organic molecules and minerals tied to past habitable conditions
- Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment
Ground-penetrating radar that images rock layers and ice tens of metres below the wheels
- Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer
Weather station tracking wind, temperature, pressure, humidity, dust and radiation
- Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment
Technology demo that made oxygen from Martian air for future crews — now concluded
Headline discoveries
The 'Cheyava Falls' rock yielded the 'Sapphire Canyon' sample, whose organic-rich, redox-driven mineral chemistry is the strongest potential biosignature found on Mars so far — though confirmation needs the sample back on Earth.
MOXIE produced breathable oxygen directly from the carbon-dioxide atmosphere, proving a technology that could one day supply crews and rocket propellant.
Ingenuity flew 72 times over nearly three years — a 'Wright brothers moment' that proved aircraft can scout ahead of rovers on Mars.
