STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence An Afternoon with James Green: Exploring Mars with Perseverance and Ingenuity

Mars orbiters, landers, and rovers have made extraordinary discoveries about the evolution of Mars and its potential for life. There have been many observed signs of ancient liquid water: surface and underground. There are past geological environments on Mars that had reasonable potential to have preserved the evidence of life, had it existed. The detection of complex organics by Curiosity has increased the potential for preserving “fingerprints of life” that may be locked away in the rock record. These and other factors have led NASA, with the support of other space agencies, to mount a Mars sample return campaign. The first mission is the Perseverance rover, which landed in Jezero crater in February 2021 near an extensive ancient river delta. Other missions will follow to bring various samples back to Earth for further analysis. In addition, Perseverance carried the Ingenuity helicopter as a technology demonstration which has been tremendously successful and may lead to other future ariel missions on the Red planet.