NASA Prepares for the Martian Landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover

Perseverance flight director Magdy Bareh moves the final marble from the Perseverance Mars rover Earth launch jar to the Mars landing in a conference room of the Mission Support Area (MSA) on Thursday, February 18, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Perseverance Mars rover team has been moving one marble a day since launch from jar to jar. 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. NASA Photo by Bill Ingalls/UPI