By Dr. Lisa Will, Resident Astronomer at the Fleet Science Center
NASA’s next Mars rover, named Perseverance, will be landing on Mars on February 18, 2021. Launched on July 30, 2020 (another name for the mission Mars 2020), the spacecraft will complete an almost 300-million-mile journey and begin its exploration of Jezero Crater.
So, what will Perseverance do during its planned mission? It will spend almost two Earth years (about one Martian year) doing the following: