The Mars 2020 rover, which will set off for the Red Planet this year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA's scientists said on Friday as they introduced the vehicle. The rover has been constructed in a large, sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, where its driving equipment was given its first successful test last week.
Shown to invited journalists on Friday, it is scheduled to leave Earth in July 2020 from Florida's Cape Canaveral, becoming the fifth US rover to land on Mars seven months later in February.
"It's designed to seek the signs of life, so we're carrying a number of different instruments that will help us understand the geological and chemical situations on the surface of Mars," deputy mission leader Matt Wallace told AFP.
Among the devices aboard the rover are 23 cameras, two "ears" that will allow it to listen to Martian winds, and lasers used for chemical analysis.
Approximately the size of a car, the rover is equipped with six wheels like the former US rover, Curiosity, allowing it to travel along rocky land.
Speed is not a priority for the vehicle, which merely has to cover around 200 yards (about 180 metres) per Martian day—approximately the same as a day on Earth.
Fueled by a tiny nuclear reactor, it has seven-foot-long (about 2 metres) articulated arms and a drill to crack open rock samples in locations scientists identify as potentially suitable for life.
We are hoping to move fairly quickly. We'd like to see the next mission launched in 2026 where the rover will get to Mars, pick up the samples, put them into a rocket and finally bring them back to the Earth, said Wallace. NASA's Mars 2020 rover will remain active for at least one Martian year, which is around two years on Earth.
