Perseverance & Ingenuity (Mars 2020)

Perseverance launched on July 30, 2020, and landed in Jezero Crater — an ancient river delta — on February 18, 2021, guided by terrain-relative navigation that let it dodge hazards on descent. Its mission: search for signs of ancient microbial life and seal the most promising rock cores in titanium tubes for a future sample-return mission.

Strapped to its belly rode Ingenuity, a four-pound helicopter that made the first powered flight on another planet in April 2021 — a ‘Wright brothers moment’ on a world with one percent of Earth’s air. Planned for five flights, Ingenuity flew 72 times over nearly three years, scouting routes for the rover, before a rotor was damaged in January 2024. Perseverance rolls on, its sample depot waiting on the Martian surface.