The latest rover to land on Mars, Perseverance is exploring ancient lake and delta deposits to determine what the ancient lake was like and whether there are any preserved biosignatures related to life on Mars.

Nickname: Percy

Independent of the rover’s science mission, this helicopter made the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. While Mars has lower gravity at about one-third that of Earth, its atmosphere is only one percent as dense, which makes the helicopter’s task of getting off the ground much more difficult.

Nickname: Ginny

This blog post was published in 2021 before Perseverance landed.

This blog post was published in 2020 before Perseverance landed.

This blog post was published in February 2022.

This blog post was published in April 2021. 

This blog post was published in October 2021. 

This blog post was published in April 2022. 

“Is there life on Mars?” is a question people have asked for more than a century. But in order to finally get the answer, we have to know what to look for and where to go on the planet to look for evidence of past life.

We’ve been exploring Mars with robotics since 1975—with landers, rovers, and a helicopter.

How have we imagined travelling to Mars? Check out this literary mix-tape of how travelling to Mars has been portrayed in science fiction.

A selection of some of our favorite AirSpace podcast episodes about the Red Planet.

Recorded in July 2020

Recorded in February 2021