NASA sending newest rover ’Perseverance’ to Mars

NASA is sending its newest rover “Perseverance” to Mars on Thursday. The rover will be onboard an AtlasV rocket, which will launch from Kennedy Space Center at 7:50 a.m., weather permitting.

It will take the rover six months to get to Mars, where it is headed for the Jezero Crater. The Jezero Crater is a 28-mile wide crater that was once an ancient lake.

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The rover will be looking for signs of past microbial life.

“Perseverance” will have a miniature helicopter named “Ingenuity,” which is the first aircraft ever to take off and land on another planet for aerial surveys.

Also onboard the rover will be 19 cameras, along with radars, a spectrometer and a weather station. The weather station is called “MEDA” and will take weather measurements such as wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity and the size of dust particles on Mars.

Understanding how dust behaves is important in forecasting the weather on the Red Planet.

“Perseverance” will also be equipped with a drill so that it can collect samples of rocks and soil that future missions can pick up.

NASA’s goal is to put humans back on the Moon by 2024 and eventually, use a lunar base to launch missions to Mars.

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