NASA’s new microbe-hunting Mars rover, scheduled for launch July 20, is the most sophisticated rover yet, but it will take at least a decade to determine whether samples the machine collects exhibit signs of life, agency officials said Wednesday.
The Perseverance rover is expected to land on the Red Planet in February. It is designed to drill samples of rock and drop them for a future mission to pick up and send back to Earth. The rover also has advanced science equipment on board to scan the samples for signs of past or present life.
But scientists don’t expect the rover’s data, sent over millions of miles through space, to confirmation life on the Red Planet.
“On Mars, it will be more of a potential confirmation,” said NASA’s Katie Stack Morgan, the Perseverance deputy project scientist. “It’s very likely we’ll have to return those samples to Earth.”
NASA doesn’t expect to bring the samples back until 2031 due to the expense and planning required, as well as orbital periods when the two planets are too far apart for travel between them.
