The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, powered by the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket, has blasted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station! The liftoff went right on time, at 7:50 a.m. EDT.

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

7 replies on “Perseverance Is On Its Way To Mars”

  1. Nice. Hopefully it is able to successfully land once it gets to Mars. To me, that’s the hardest part of a Mars mission.

  3. It’s always a huge challenge to launch a Mars mission with all of the preparations and final checks that have to be made on these very complex systems, as all the while a very limited launch window approaches unrelentingly. To then have the COVID-19 wrench thrown into the works just months prior to the window opening would seem to be nearly insurmountable, but they pulled it off. Congratulations to the team.

  5. And congratulations to Keith for getting Jim Bridenstine to say the word “astrobiology” during the post-launch press conference!

  6. Great launch. But I do have to say, Tory Bruno’s enthusiasm (or was it salesmanship?) about rocket launching was so infectious I almost forgot for a moment his company is one of the villains of the story of spaceflight of the last 15 years, and to this day ULA remains on the wrong side of history of spaceflight.

    But there is no denying, he loved being there, and/or is just an excellent hype artist for his company.

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