Perseverance
Perseverance is NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, launched July 30, 2020, and landed in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. Its mission is to search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterize Mars’ geology, and collect samples for potential return to Earth.
Source: science.nasa.gov
APODs including "Perseverance"
Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity
01/07/2021
On sol 46 (April 6, 2021) the Perseverance rover held out a robotic arm to take its first selfie on Mars. The WATSON camera at the end of the arm was designed to take close-ups of martian rocks and surface details though, and not a quick snap shot of friends and smiling faces. In the end, teamwork and weeks of planning on Mars time was required to program a complex series of exposures and camera motions to include Perseverance and its surroundings. The resulting 62 frames were composed into a detailed mosiac, one of the most complicated Mars rover selfies ever taken. In this version of the selfie, the rover's Mastcam-Z and SuperCam instruments are looking toward WATSON and the end of the rover's outstretched arm. About 4 meters (13 feet) from Perseverance is a robotic companion, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter.