![\"At](\"https:\/\/wp-assets.futurism.com\/2020\/07\/nasa-perseverance-mars-launch-300x158.jpg\")
<\/div>Blast Off<\/h2>
At exactly 7:50 am EDT this morning, NASA successfully launched<\/a> its Perseverance rover mission<\/a> to Mars. The rover, with its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter in tow, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.<\/p> A small earthquake prior to launch luckily didn’t cause any delays, as CNN<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p> “This is the first time in history where we’re going to Mars with an explicit mission to find life on another world — ancient life on Mars,” noted NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine during a press briefing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.<\/p> Perseverance, NASA’s fifth Mars rover, will spend the next seven months speeding hundreds of millions of miles toward Mars. Landing at the Jezero Crater, a suspected ancient dried up lake, is scheduled for February 18, 2021. The rover will then, if everything goes according to plan, deploy its experimental helicopter roughly two months later<\/a>.<\/p> The launch follows two other successful launches intended to explore the Red Planet. China launched its Tianwen-1 rover<\/a> mission last week. And the United Arab Emirates also launched<\/a> a spacecraft to study Martian weather from orbit.<\/p> Perseverance is stuffed to the gills with scientific instruments, ranging from a device called MOXIE<\/a> meant to test whether future visitors could produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, to SuperCam<\/a>, a powerful laser capable of identifying organic compounds in rocks and soils.<\/p> The rover will also be the first robot to be able to “hear” its surroundings on the Red Planet thanks to a pair of microphones<\/a>.<\/p> Additionally, Perseverance will collect rock samples and put them into a small glass tube — with the goal of another mission retrieving them at a later date.<\/p> READ MORE:<\/strong> NASA launches Mars rover to look for signs of ancient life<\/a> [AP<\/em>] More on Perseverance: <\/strong>On Tomorrow’s Launch, NASA Is Sending Spacesuit Chunks to Mars<\/a><\/em><\/p> The post NASA Blasts Off Most Sophisticated Mars Mission in Human History<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p> View post: Blast Off At exactly 7:50 am EDT this morning, NASA successfully launched its Perseverance rover mission to Mars. The rover, with its Ingenuity Mars Helicopter in tow, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. A small earthquake prior to launch luckily didn\u2019t cause any delays, as CNN reports Continue reading Red Rover<\/h2>
Science Squared<\/h2>
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NASA Blasts Off Most Sophisticated Mars Mission in Human History<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"