Mars 2020

It's been remarkable year for space exploration, marked by a line up of ambitious new interplanetary missions, industry firsts, and the reemergence of the US in the field of human spaceflight.

NASA has announced that, soon after yesterday’s launch of the Mars Perseverance rover, that mission had experienced minor issues that hindered communication and caused the spacecraft couriering the rover to enter a "safe mode."

NASA's Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance rover are on their way to Mars. At 4:50 am EDT (11:50 GMT), the spacecraft lifted off on the first leg of its 309-million-mile voyage to search for signs of life on the Red Planet.

When NASA's Perseverance Mars rover touches down on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, its descent stage will guide it autonomously to a (hopefully) safe landing thanks to a pair of the most precise Martian maps ever produced.

The spacecraft containing NASA's Perseverance rover has been successfully mated with the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that will propel it towards Mars at the end of the month.

ESA has awarded a contract to Airbus Defence and Space to go ahead on the next phase to develop the Sample Fetch Rover. The contract will allow Airbus to continue work on the rover that will collect Martian rock and soil samples for return to Earth.

An international team of scientists is conducting the experiments designed for NASA's Perseverance Mars rover here on Earth. The purpose is to provide a baseline with which to compare the data returned from the Red Planet.

NASA is continuing to prepare its freshly named Mars 2020 rover for launch later this year, with the team successfully attaching the sampling components that Perseverance will use to collect Martian rock and dust after touchdown.

NASA's Mars 2020 rover finally has a name: Perseverance. The result of a nationwide "Name the Rover" essay contest, the winning moniker was submitted by 13-year-old Alexander Mather of Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia.

Science stands still for no one, and with a new year comes a new calendar of exciting events in spaceflight and exploration. New Atlas rounds up some of the most important milestones to look forward to in 2020.

NASA has revealed the nine finalist names for the space agency's Mars 2020 rover – and none of them are "Rovy McRoverface." Selected from 28,000 essays submitted by US elementary and high school students, the nine names will now go to a public poll.

NASA's Mars 2020 rover has taken its first drive as part of preflight systems tests. On December 19, 2019, the unmanned explorer completed a 10-hour drive operating under its own weight and put its autonomous navigation system through its paces.