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Panelists will discuss the rover’s recently launched science campaign and preparatory work for its next major milestone.
NASA will hold a virtual press conference at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on Wednesday, July 21, to discuss the first scientific results from the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover and its preparations to collect the very first Martian samples for a return. expected on Earth.
The briefing will come from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is managed. It will be streamed live on NASA Television, the NASA app and agency website, and streamed live on multiple agency social media platforms, including JPL’s YouTube and Facebook channels.
Participants in the briefing include:
- Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for Science, NASA HQ
- Jennifer Trosper, Perseverance Project Manager, JPL
- Olivier Toupet, team leader Perseverance enriched navigation, JPL
- Ken Farley, Perseverance Project Scientist, Caltech
- Vivian Sun, co-head of the Perseverance scientific campaign, JPL
Members of the public can also ask questions on social media during the briefing using #AskNASA.
Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater on February 18. The rover team recently completed an initial check-up, which lasted for 90 sols, or Martian days, and which included Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s test flight campaign. Perseverance launched the scientific phase of its mission on June 1.
A key focus of Perseverance’s mission to Mars is astrobiology, including looking for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s past geology and climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples on the surface and return them to Earth for further analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s approach to exploring the Moon to Mars, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
To learn more about Perseverance, visit:
https://nasa.gov/perseverance
and
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
Media contacts
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
[email protected] / [email protected]
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