Ingenuity Mars helicopter was designed to catch a ride with the Perseverance rover bound for Mars.
The Mars Sample Return request for proposals requires alternative architectures to return at least 10 samples collected by the Perseverance rover, including samples on the rover or a cache of 10 sample tubes left at the Three Forks depot in early 2023.
Perseverance is planned to complete exploration outside Jezero Crater and return to the crater floor in 2028, after which it would enter a quiescent state until the sample retrieval lander arrives.
The European Space Agency is a partner on NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission and will provide the Earth Return Orbiter and a robotic arm to transfer samples from the Perseverance rover to the lander that will launch them into orbit.
Alexander Mather named the Perseverance rover, emphasizing humanity's ability to persevere in the face of challenges.
The Mars 2020 spacecraft weighed 3,649 kilograms and placed the Perseverance rover, which weighs 1,025 kilograms, onto the Martian surface.
Ingenuity remains in contact with controllers via the Perseverance rover until the rover moves out of communications range.
Ingenuity was repurposed as an aerial scout for the Perseverance rover and conducted flights to assist with path assessments.
In July 2022 NASA decided to use two helicopters based on the Ingenuity design on a future Sample Retrieval Lander mission in place of an ESA-provided rover to pick up Perseverance’s cached samples if necessary.
Ingenuity was included on NASA’s Mars 2020 mission with the Perseverance rover as a technology demonstration planned for no more than five flights over one month.
An MMRTG continuously provides the Perseverance rover with heat and about 110 watts of electricity.
The Perseverance rover carries some of the new plutonium-238 produced by the Department of Energy.
NASA's Perseverance rover continues to collect tubes filled with rock core samples for the Mars Sample Return campaign.
The Sample Retrieval Lander will carry a rocket to launch Perseverance's samples to an orbiter.
Motiv Space Systems custom-engineered a six-degree-of-freedom force-torque sensor for NASA/JPL’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover that operates at -135°C.
Motiv Space Systems designed and built the seven-foot-long, five-joint robotic arm mounted at the front of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.
The budget includes $949,000,000 for Mars Sample Return, the campaign to return samples collected by the Perseverance rover from Mars.
After completing the cache, Perseverance will continue its science mission and collect additional samples beyond the crater rim.
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will start depositing a cache of samples collected since landing last year as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign.
Perseverance will switch to a single sample strategy after the cache is complete, allowing for more locations and types of rocks to sample.