Mars 2020 Rover Notebook

NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover mission is the next robotic exploration program to the red planet, launching aboard an Atlas V rocket in July of 2020 and landing at the Jezero crater on Mars in February 2021. It will perform its scientific activities over at least one Mars year of 687 Earth days, continuing the work started by Curiosity, InSight, Spirit and Opportunity. A unique feature of the mission is that the Mars 2020 rover will collect samples from rocks and soils and cache them for return to Earth on a later mission. Other technology will extract oxygen from the largely carbon dioxide atmosphere on Mars to prove that astronauts can generate breathable air when they land in future decades.