Rover armed with a laser is set for $2.7 billion mission to find evidence of ancient life on Mars

A helicopter and a rover armed with a laser is set to become the first powered aircraft to fly on another planet with a billion dollar trip to Mars.

The rover, named Perseverance, will be accompanied by a mini-helicopter called Ingenuity when it launches from Florida on July 20.

Nasa has described the journey as the "first ever round trip mission to another planet".

Perseverance's mission will be to seek signs of life on Mars and demonstrate key technologies which could help prepare for future robotic and human exploration.

It will be equipped with a demonstration technology called Moxie that is designed to manufacture oxygen from the atmosphere to support future human explorers that make the same journey.

Lori Glaze, Nasa’s director of planetary science said the team couldn't be "more excited" about the $2.7 billion (£2.2 billion) mission.

"Perseverance is the most sophisticated mission we’ve ever sent to the red planet’s surface," she said.

"It’s the next step in our historic Mars exploration programme which has been exploring Mars and unlocking its secrets for decades.

"Samples from Mars have the potential to profoundly change our understanding of the origin, evolution and distribution of life on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system.”

When the rover arrives on Mars in February it will be sent into the Jezero crater where it will use sampling and analytical tools, two lasers, 23 cameras and radar to advance studies of the planet's geology and climate.

It will also look for bio-signatures of life and collect samples for a "fetch rover" that will pick them up in 2026 to pass onto a series of spacecraft that will send them to Earth.

Perseverance will be the first Nasa spacecraft to visit Mars for a mission that involves gathering samples for a future return to Earth (Nasa)
NASA

The 4lb drone, Ingenuity, will make test flights to determine its potential as a future planetary scout.

Nasa said the groundbreaking mission relies on the relative positions of Earth and Mars to each other and launch opportunities only come up every 26 months.

If Perseverance didn't head to Mars this summer, the project wouldn't be able to take place until September 2022.

"Fifty-one years ago today, NASA was deep into final preparations for the first Moon landing," said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine.

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"Today we stand at the threshold of another monumental moment in exploration: sample collection at Mars.

"As we celebrate the heroes of Apollo 11 today, future generations may well recognise the women and men of Perseverance — not only for what they will achieve 100 million miles from home, but for what they were able to accomplish on this world on the road to launch."

The team of the scientists behind the historic mission faced a host of challenges of which they said the coronavirus pandemic was the "greatest challenge" as it forced some of the work to be done remotely.

They also faced challenges when perfecting the performance of the rover's Sample Caching System, which they say is the most complex and cleanest mechanism ever sent into space.

"The team never wavered in its pursuit of the launch pad," said Michael Watkins, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

"It was through their dedication and the help of other NASA facilities that we have made it this far."

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