BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — Perseverance is expected to be NASA's most sophisticated mission to Mars to date. If all goes well, the rover will look for signs of life on the red planet.
"It's designed to drive around and look for signs, they call them biosignatures. They are indicators in the rocks that maybe life was there in the past," said Michael Shepard, professor of Environmental, Geographical, and Geological Sciences at Bloomsburg University.
Shepard has worked with NASA on another project that will study an asteroid and will fly by Mars. Shepard is very interested in Perseverance.
"It's about the size of a car, and what makes it a little hair raising is, they're not able to control from Earth while the landing is taking place. It's got to be done completely automatically," Shepard said.
The rover had been traveling through space since launching from Florida in July. It traveled nearly 300 million miles on its journey to Mars.
"They'll get a signal that says it's entered the atmosphere, and then they won't know if it's succeeded or not unless they get a call back maybe 15 minutes later," Shepard said.
Luckily, it did succeed. Its mission will be at least two years. NASA says it will collect rock and soil samples and look for signs of life on Mars.