The agency also plans to build a highly secure laboratory on Earth to house and study the samples. Sky-Sailor – 2014 – Plane developed by Switzerland to take detailed pictures of Mars surface; Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher – 2018 rover concept, cancelled due to budget cuts in 2011. The rover then will transport the tube until mission control commands it to deposit the container on the Martian surface.“Some of the technologies demonstrated on the Perseverance mission will also be applicable for our return to the moon,” said Michelle Rucker, Mars Integration Lead at Johnson Space Center.The radar imager for Mars’ subsurface experiment, or RIMFAX instrument, will use ground-penetrating radar to study the Mars subsurface.“The samples from Mars have the potential for profound change of our understanding of Martian planetary evolution,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.“The lander vision system compares images of the landing site with maps that have been prepared with orbiter images,” said Jeff Sheehy, chief engineer at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The rover then will transport the tube until mission control commands it to deposit the container on the Martian surface.Scientists have wanted for decades to obtain rock samples from Mars. Associates at Mars are everyday heroes. "When we explore Mars in the future we want to be able to live off the land in some respects," Watzin said.The rover, about the size of a small SUV, is packed with instruments that will examine rocks in the Jezero Crater just north of the Martian equator. “This is the kind of technology that we’ll need to land several different assets close to each other.”The lander is to include a fetch rover to retrieve the samples and bring them back to the lander, from which a small rocket will launch them into Mars orbit. "We still can't land exactly where we want to be," Jim Watzin, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said during Tuesday's second press briefing. Engineers will compare the measurements to data collected by sensors on the spacecraft that carried the Curiosity rover to the Martian surface in 2012.The Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance rover also will execute a handful of technology demonstrations once on the Mars surface.Several experiments traveling with the rover — including a helicopter strapped to its undercarriage — are meant to test technologies NASA scientists need for the first human trip to Mars, including the ability to study samples from the planet at home.The samples would be the first ever returned from another planet. Sample cache goal later moved to Mars 2020 rover. “The samples from Mars have the potential for profound change of our understanding of Martian planetary evolution,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. On board the Perseverance rover, which is to be launched Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, are 43 containers the size of cigar tubes designed to hold rock and dirt samples.“It’s kind of an interplanetary relay race,” David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration for the European Space Agency, said at a news conference Tuesday based at Kennedy Space Center. Once dropping onto the Martian surface, Ingenuity will start out like a baby bird, rising 10 feet (3 meters) into the planet's extremely thin atmosphere and flying forward up to 6 feet (2 meters). Send Your Name to Mars for FREE on NASA’s Mars Rover! The 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter, Ingenuity, will travel to Mars clutching the rover's belly and, a few months after touchdown, attempt to fly solo.

To execute more precise landings, engineers at NASA developed terrain relative navigation.Hundreds of scientists on Earth will study the data and images Perseverance beams back and decide precisely where to drill, according to Chris Herd, a scientist with the Canadian University of Alberta in Edmonton, who is part of the Mars sample return program.The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer will collect temperature, wind, air pressure and other meteorologic data that help scientists study Martian weather and better predict the hazards humans will face on Mars. The orbiter then will retrieve the samples and fly back to Earth. And once again, Canadians are part of the historic endeavour. The orbiter then will retrieve the samples and fly back to Earth. The agency also plans to build a highly secure laboratory on Earth to house and study the samples.“Any launch to Mars is exciting but to me, but this is exciting times 10 because of the sample return,” Parker said.Perseverance, however, isn’t equipped to send the samples back to Earth.