Atlas V 541 | Mars 2020 (Perseverance rover & Ingenuity helicopter)

Launch Provider & Rocket

• Provider: United Launch Alliance (Commercial)
• Rocket: Atlas V 541 — Atlas family

Mission

Atop this ULA Atlas V rocket will be Perseverance, a car-sized rover which will explore an ancient river delta on Mars. Armed with a suite of six scientific instruments, Perseverance will primarily hunt for clues to the planet's distant past, and hopefully uncover signs of ancient life and habitability. The rover also carries an experiment that'll convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, a box-sized helicopter named Ingenuity that'll demonstrate powered flight on Mars, and a system that enables the rover to leave behind samples for later retrieval and return to Earth during NASA and ESA's ambitious sample return mission later this decade.

• Type: Robotic Exploration
• Orbit: Heliocentric N/A (Helio-N/A)

Launch Site

• Pad: Space Launch Complex 41
• Location: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA
• View on map

Program

• NASA Large Strategic Science Missions — NASA's large strategic science missions or large strategic missions, formerly known as Flagship missions or Flagship-class missions, are the costliest and most capable NASA science spacecraft. Flagship missions exist within all four divisions of NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD): the astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics and planetary science divisions. (Wikipedia)