United Launch AllianceAtlas V 541Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA
Atlas V 541 | Mars 2020 (Perseverance rover & Ingenuity helicopter)
Launch window
No countdown — this launch time is not yet known to the minute.July 30, 2020Add to calendar
Image: United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance's 141st launch · 4th this year · humanity's 5,980th orbital launch attempt
The launch vehicle successfully inserted its payload(s) into the target orbit(s).
Window: Jul 30, 11:50 – Jul 30, 13:50 UTC
Flight preview
Mars 2020 (Perseverance rover & Ingenuity helicopter)
Atop this ULA Atlas V rocket will be Perseverance, a car-sized rover which will explore an ancient river delta on Mars. Armed with a suite of six scientific instruments, Perseverance will primarily hunt for clues to the planet's distant past, and hopefully uncover signs of ancient life and habitability. The rover also carries an experiment that'll convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, a box-sized helicopter named Ingenuity that'll demonstrate powered flight on Mars, and a system that enables the rover to leave behind samples for later retrieval and return to Earth during NASA and ESA's ambitious sample return mission later this decade.
Robotic Exploration · Heliocentric N/A (Helio-N/A)
Booster
No booster details available.
Watch
- Atlas V Mars 2020 Launch Highlights — United Launch Alliance
- Watch NASA's Perseverance Rover Launch to Mars! — NASA
News

Perseverance Captures Another Phobos Transit
Description NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera to capture the silhouette of Phobos, one of the two Martian moons, as it crossed in front of the Sun on Aug. 12, 2026, the 1,948th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The animation has been tinted to simulate what a human would see if […]

NASA’s Perseverance Captures Phobos and Earth
Description This composite of seven images from the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows Earth, visible as a small bright dot moving from upper left to lower right, passing behind the Martian moon Phobos on July 2, 2026, 1,907th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The black background is the result of […]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Watches Earth Vanish Behind Martian Moon
Earth and the Martian moon Phobos dance together in a series of images recently acquired by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Earth appears as a point of light in the Martian sky, disappearing behind the crescent of Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. This is the first time humanity has captured from the surface of […]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Provides Sweeping View of Broom Point
Description This view looking back up at the outside lip of the 490-foot-tall (150-meter-tall) rim of Jezero Crater was taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance on May 15, 2025, the 1,505th day, or sol, of the rover’s mission to Mars. The bright-colored rocks exposed across the slope, running from middle left to middle right of […]

Perseverance’s Trip to ‘Broom Point’
Description This orbital map shows the path NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took to get to a location the science team has dubbed the “Broom Point member,” a sequence of layered bedrock likely more than 3.9 billion years old. As planned, the rover landed inside Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. It investigated the crater’s western delta […]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Reads Record of Ancient Mars Impacts
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has uncovered evidence that a 245-foot-thick (75-meter-thick) stack of ancient rock on the rim of Jezero Crater was built by repeated asteroid impacts. Referred to as the “Broom Point member” by the rover’s science team, this sequence of layered bedrock is likely more than 3.9 billion years old, making it among […]

