--- title: "NASA Blasts Off Most Sophisticated Mars Mission in Human History" description: "At exactly 7:50 am EDT this morning, NASA successfully launched its Perseverance rover mission to Mars from Cape Canaveral, Florida." date: "2020-07-30" modified: "2020-07-30" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-perseverance-mars-launch" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "mars" - "mars helicopter" - "NASA" - "perseverance" - "the digest" --- # NASA Blasts Off Most Sophisticated Mars Mission in Human History ![At exactly 7:50 am EDT this morning, NASA successfully launched its Perseverance rover mission to Mars from Cape Canaveral, Florida.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## 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't cause any delays, as [*CNN* reports](). "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. ## Red Rover 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](). The launch follows two other successful launches intended to explore the Red Planet. China [launched its Tianwen-1 rover]() mission last week. And the United Arab Emirates [also launched]() a spacecraft to study Martian weather from orbit. ## Science Squared Perseverance is stuffed to the gills with scientific instruments, ranging from a device called [MOXIE]() meant to test whether future visitors could produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, to [SuperCam](), a powerful laser capable of identifying organic compounds in rocks and soils. 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](). 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. **READ MORE:** [NASA launches Mars rover to look for signs of ancient life]() \[*AP*\] **More on Perseverance:** *[On Tomorrow’s Launch, NASA Is Sending Spacesuit Chunks to Mars]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()