Watch NASA's Mars Perseverance rover scientists discuss its first 18 months on Red Planet today

Elizabeth Howell
·2 min read
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NASA is hosting an update about the Perseverance Mars mission, and you can watch the whole thing live.

Agency officials plan a briefing about the Perseverance rover at 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT) on Thursday (Sept. 15) "to provide highlights from the first year and a half of the Perseverance rover’s exploration of Mars," NASA said in a statement on Tuesday (Sept. 13).

You can watch live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), or directly via the agency. NASA will also share updates on social media and the NASA app.

Related: Mars helicopter Ingenuity: First aircraft to fly on Red Planet

The rover is exploring the Red Planet's Jezero Crater, where it landed on the surface in February 2021. Accompanied by the mini helicopter Ingenuity, the rover is seeking signs of ancient life on Mars and caching promising soil and rock samples for a future return to Earth. Perseverance is now exploring a long-dry river delta, where it has been for nearly six months.

Recent blog posts from Perseverance team members have focused on matters such as seeking frost on Mars, and better understanding the velocity and seasonality of Red Planet winds.

Meanwhile, Ingenuity recently soared into the sky again on its 31st flight, as the drone helicopter continues to work far beyond its expected lifespan. A planned interagency sample return mission may bring Perseverance's cache to Earth in the mid-2030s, if all goes to plan.

Briefing participants will include:

  • Lori Glaze, director of NASA's planetary science division, NASA Headquarters

  • Laurie Leshin, JPL director

  • Rick Welch, Perseverance deputy project manager, JPL

  • Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, Caltech

  • Sunanda Sharma, Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) scientist, JPL

  • David Shuster, Perseverance returned sample scientist, University of California, Berkeley

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