In a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, engineers observed the first driving test for NASA's Mars 2020 rover (now named Perseverance) on December 17, 2019. #

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover onboard is seen illuminated by spotlights on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 28, 2020. #

Alexander Mather, of Burke, Virginia, stands next to a model of the Mars 2020 rover he named in a contest, during a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center on July 28, 2020, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Mather submitted the winning entry in NASA's "Name the Rover" essay contest, making the case to name the Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance. #

An engineer working on NASA's Mars 2020 mission uses a solar intensity probe to measure and compare the amount of artificial sunlight that reaches different portions of the rover. To simulate the sun's rays for the test, powerful xenon lamps several floors below the chamber were illuminated, their light directed onto a mirror at the top of the chamber and reflected down on the spacecraft. Photographed on October 14, 2019, in the Space Simulator Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. #

The heat shield (left) and back shell (right) that comprise the aeroshell for NASA's Mars 2020 mission are depicted in this image. Both components are nearly 15 feet in diameter. The aeroshell will encapsulate and protect the rover and its descent stage both during their deep space cruise to Mars and during descent through the Martian atmosphere, which generates intense heat. The image was taken at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado, where the aeroshell was manufactured. #

In this June 2017 photo, the supersonic parachute design that will land NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars undergoes testing in a wind tunnel at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. #

Members of the NASA Mars Helicopter team attach a thermal film to the exterior of the flight model of the Mars Helicopter named Ingenuity. The image was taken on February 1, 2019 inside the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide vacuum chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. #

NASA engineers and technicians reposition the Mars 2020 spacecraft descent stage during a media tour of the spacecraft assembly area clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena on December 27, 2019. #

The Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator for NASA'S Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is shown during a fit check with the rover in a payload processing facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 16-17, 2020. The Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator is a space nuclear power system that produces about 110 watts of electrical power to run the rover's systems and science instruments, and extra heat to keep them warm during the frigid Martian nights and winter seasons. It converts the heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium dioxide into electricity using thermocouples with no moving parts. The generator was designed and built by the U.S. Department of Energy and provided to NASA as part of the space agency's Radioisotope Power Systems Program. #

In the image, taken on June 1, 2019, an engineer in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, can be seen working on the exposed belly of Perseverance. It has been inverted to allow the 2020 engineers and technicians easier access. The front of the rover is on the left camera. The engineer is inspecting wiring directly above the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment instrument. MOXIE will demonstrate a way that future explorers might produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for propellant and for breathing. #

This image of the Perseverance Mars rover was taken at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on April 7, 2020, during a test of the vehicle's mass properties. The rover was rotated clockwise and counterclockwise on a spin table to determine the center of gravity, or the point at which weight is evenly dispersed on all sides. #

Ingenuity, NASA’s Mars helicopter, is installed on the agency’s Perseverance rover inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on April 6, 2020. After Perseverance safely lands on Mars, the helicopter will be released to perform the first in a series of flight tests that will take place during a period of about 30 days. #

Members of NASA's Mars 2020 project take a moment after attaching the remote sensing mast to the Mars 2020 rover. The image was taken on June 5, 2019, in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. #

A placard commemorating NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign was installed on the Perseverance Mars rover on March 16, 2020, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Three fingernail-sized chips affixed to the upper-left corner of the placard feature the names of the 10,932,295 people who participated. They were individually stenciled onto the chips by electron beam, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA's "Name the Rover" contest. #

This image, taken in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena on July 23, 2019, shows a close-up of the head of Mars 2020's remote sensing mast. The masthead contains the SuperCam instrument; its lens is in the large circular opening. In the gray boxes beneath the masthead are the two Mastcam-Z imagers. On the exterior sides of those imagers are the rover's two navigation cameras. #

The Perseverance Mars rover is visible (just above center) in this image, taken on November 12, 2019, of the High Bay 1 clean room floor in JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility. To the right of Perseverance are the mission's Descent Stage and Cruise Stage. #

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Backshell-Powered Descent Vehicle and Entry Vehicle assemblies are being prepared to be attached to the Mars Perseverance rover on May 4, 2020. The cone-shaped backshell contains the parachute, and along with the mission’s heat shield, provides protection for the rover and descent stage during Martian atmospheric entry. #

The Perseverance rover mission's disk-shaped cruise stage sits atop the bell-shaped back shell, which contains the powered descent stage and the folded Perseverance rover. Below is the brass-colored heat shield that is about to be attached to the back shell. The image was taken on May 28, 2020, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The next time the back shell and cruise stage will separate will be about 6 miles above Mars's Jezero crater on February 18, 2021. #

Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is being prepared for encapsulation in the United Launch Alliance Atlas V payload fairing on June 18, 2020. #

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that will launch to Mars arrives at Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 28, 2020. #