MRO’s HiRISE Spots Perseverance and Ingenuity

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover and Ingenuity helicopter were spotted on the surface of the Red Planet in this black-and-white image captured Feb. 26, 2022, by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The rover is viewed here sitting on fractured bedrock of the “Máaz” formation before its long drive to the Jezero Crater’s delta. About 656 feet (200 meters) to the left is the Ingenuity helicopter, which is so small that it appears as a mere dot on the landscape.

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover as well as for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado.