The rover name "Perseverance" was selected through a student competition and serves as the name of the Mars 2020 rover.
The 2020-03-01 Perseverance rover mission is scheduled to launch 2020-07-20 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The Perseverance rover carries a small commemorative plate measuring 8 by 0.13 m that features a version of the Rod of Asclepius and an image of the Earth showing the Mars 2020 launch trajectory.
NASA raised the Mars 2020 mission to the highest priority because its rover Perseverance has a narrow launch window between mid-July and early August 2020.
NASA’s Perseverance mission must launch between 2020-07-17 and 2020-08-05 to match the Earth–Mars proximity window for that mission.
United Launch Alliance is building an Atlas V rocket for NASA’s $2,400,000,000 Perseverance rover mission to Mars.
The Tianwen-1 mission will launch in the July–August Mars 2020 launch window alongside NASA’s Perseverance Mars 2020 rover and the United Arab Emirates’ Hope Mars orbiter.
NASA is moving ahead with the Mars 2020 mission and its Perseverance rover because of a narrow launch window that opens in mid-July.
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission will launch the Perseverance rover to Mars and will cache samples for return by a pair of future missions planned for launch in 2026 in cooperation with the European Space Agency.