Perseverance Rover

Before I had a name, I was a dream in a big, bright room full of busy people. They moved carefully around me, like busy bees in a hive, putting me together piece by brilliant piece. They gave me six tough aluminum wheels to roll over bumpy ground, a head full of special cameras for eyes to see a new world, and a strong robotic arm to reach out and learn. The people who built me at NASA whispered about my destination: a long, long journey to a cold, dusty, red place millions of miles away. Can you imagine being built for a world you’ve never seen?. I am the Perseverance rover, but my friends on Earth just call me Percy. I am a robot explorer, a scientist on wheels, sent from Earth to uncover the secrets of the planet Mars.

My great adventure began on a sunny day in Florida, on July 30th, 2020. I was carefully folded up and placed inside the nose of a giant Atlas V rocket that rumbled and shook with incredible power. With a mighty roar, it pushed me away from the blue and green of Earth and into the quiet, starry blackness of space. For nearly seven months, I flew through the cold emptiness, waiting and preparing for the most difficult part of my entire journey. My arrival on February 18th, 2021, was something the scientists called the 'seven minutes of terror.' It was the time it took me to go from 12,000 miles per hour to a complete stop on the surface of Mars. I had to do it all on my own. First, a heat shield protected me as I blazed through the thin Martian air. Then, a giant parachute deployed to slow me down. Finally, a flying jetpack called a 'sky crane' hovered above the ground and lowered me gently on three cables. The second my wheels touched the red soil in a place called Jezero Crater, I sent a message back to my human friends: I had made it. I was ready to explore.

My whole reason for being on Mars is to be a scientist. My main job is to hunt for clues that tiny life, like microbes, might have existed here billions of years ago when Mars was warmer and had rivers, lakes, and maybe even an ocean. To do my job, I have a whole laboratory of amazing tools. My SuperCam laser, which sits on my head, can zap rocks from 20 feet away to figure out what they’re made of. It’s like having scientific superpowers. I also have a drill on the end of my robotic arm. When I find a rock that looks especially interesting, I can drill out a small core sample, about the size of a piece of chalk, and seal it inside an airtight metal tube. I leave these tubes on the surface in a special collection area. The plan is for another mission to come here one day, pick up my samples, and bring them back to Earth for scientists to study. I also brought a friend with me. A small, lightweight helicopter named Ingenuity traveled to Mars tucked under my belly. On April 19th, 2021, Ingenuity made history by becoming the first aircraft to achieve powered flight on another planet. I was so proud to take the pictures of it soaring through the thin Martian air.

I am still rolling across Mars today, exploring an ancient river delta and sending back thousands of amazing pictures of dusty plains, giant rocks, and distant hills. Every rock I study and every sample I collect is another piece of a giant puzzle about the history of Mars and the history of our solar system. I carry the hopes and curiosity of all the people back on Earth who look up at the night sky and wonder what’s out there. By exploring new worlds like Mars, we learn more about our own amazing planet and inspire the next generation of explorers to dream even bigger. I may be a robot far from home, but I am also a promise that human imagination and perseverance can take us anywhere in the universe.