In this image, taken on June 5, 2019, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, take a moment after attaching the remote sensing mast to the Mars 2020 rover in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay 1 clean room.

Full integration of the mast - a process that includes installation of science instrument sensors, electrical wiring and checkout - continued into the following week, concluding on June 11.

During Mars 2020's launch, interplanetary cruise, and its fast and fiery descent toward the Martian surface, the mast will be stowed flat on the rover's deck. Soon after touchdown, the mast (which tops out at over 7 feet, or 2.2 meters) will be raised to provide a high perch for the SuperCam, Mastcam-Z and Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer instruments as well as four Navcam engineering cameras.

Mars 2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in July of 2020. It will land at Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

In a mission first, the rover carries a sample-caching system that will collect Martian rock and soil samples and store them on the planet's surface for retrieval and return to Earth by subsequent missions.

Mars 2020 will also be the first spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration with the ability to accurately retarget its point of touchdown during the landing sequence - technology that could prove essential to future crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.

Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028. We will use what we learn on the Moon to prepare to send astronauts to Mars.

Related Links
Mars 2020
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

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Watch NASA Build Its Next Mars Rover
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 10, 2019
A newly installed webcam offers the public a live, bird's-eye view of NASA's Mars 2020 rover as it takes shape at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. You can watch as JPL engineers and technicians assemble and test the rover before it embarks next year on one of the most technologically challenging interplanetary missions ever designed. "There is so much happening and changing in the clean room, I come here every opportunity I get," said Mars 2020 project manager John McNamee ... read more