Due to the lapse in federal government funding, NASA is not updating this website.

Suggested Searches

Perseverance’s Laser Retroreflector (Illustration)

small dome called the Laser Retroreflector Array on the Perseverance rover
September 28, 2020
Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech
Language
  • english

Visible near the center of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover in this illustration is the palm-size dome called the Laser Retroreflector Array (LaRA). In the distant future, laser-equipped Mars orbiters could use such a reflector for scientific studies.

Perseverance was built and is operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California. The retroreflector was provided by Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics, which built the instrument on behalf of the Italian Space Agency.