NASA has announced where its next Mars rover will be heading. The agency has chosen Jezero Crater from dozens of potential candidates in part for its potential to have preserved signs of past microbial life. "The landing site in Jezero Crater offers...
NASA selects a landing site for its Mars 2020 rover
NASA has announced where its next Mars rover will be heading. The agency has chosen Jezero Crater from dozens of potential candidates in part for its potential to have preserved signs of past microbial life. "The landing site in Jezero Crater offers...
The next vehicle NASA is sending to Mars nestles somewhere between a rover and a satellite, at least in terms of altitude. The agency is bundling an autonomous helicopter with the Mars 2020 rover to test airborne vehicles on the red planet.
One of Mars 2020's heat shields cracked after a week-long series of tests, and NASA has no choice but to ask Lockheed Martin to build a replacement. The heat shield's purpose is to envelope and protect the Mars 2020 rover and landing system so they d...
This week, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed an a letter of intent to collect soil samples from Mars and return them to the Earth. It's important to note that this robotic mission is very preliminary: This isn't an agreement to make thi...
The Mars 2020 rover will be able to show us more of the red planet than any of its predecessors ever did. NASA says the extraterrestrial vehicle will be equipped with 23 cameras, six more than Curiosity's and all a lot more capable. Seven of those "e...
NASA has shown off a futuristic-looking concept of the Mars 2020 rover with a shiny black body and intimidating wheels at the Kennedy Space Center. If you're thinking that it looks like it popped right out of a superhero movie or a shiny video game t...
NASA wanted to find out whether the Mars 2020 rover can truly drill for samples and look for signs of life at the same time. So, a team of scientists spent the whole February testing tools using a practice rover called the KREX-2 in one of the driest...
When the Mars 2020 rover reaches the red planet, it will quickly begin drilling for samples from its surface. NASA hasn't picked the exact drill site yet, but it has narrowed its choices down to three during a workshop with scientists in Monrovia, Ca...
The Curiosity and NASA's other Mars rovers had to look for wide-open and flat landing locations to be on the safe side. Mars 2020, however, will have a camera-based navigation system capable of assessing terrains and reacting to potential hazards on...