This image was captured while NASA’s Perseverance rover drove on Mars for the first time on March 4, 2021. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech)NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is now wheeling around on the red planet and stretching its robotic limbs, the rover’s team said in the most recent update just two weeks after landing. Already the space agency released the first ever sound recorded on Mars taken by Percy and the first photos taken from the rover’s jetpack as it landed. Since then there have been many more firsts for the six-wheeled robot.. Two weeks into the mission, Percy has already sent back about 7,000 images. “Butler’s protagonists embodies determination and inventiveness, making her a perfect fit for the Perseverance rover mission, and its theme of overcoming challenges.”The spot where @NASAPersevere began its journey on Mars now bears the name “Octavia E. Butler Landing."

Following the touchdown on Mars Thursday NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover team are already getting back images taken during the entry, descent and landing also known as “seven minutes of terror” that happened about 300 million miles away from Earth. [NASA is expected to share more images, including video the Mars landing during a news briefing at 2 p.m. Monday. This image captured by a spacecraft shows NASA's Perseverance rover midair, floating over Mars while hanging from its parachute during the final moments before landing. The first color image from NASA's Perseverance rover taken right after landing on Mars Feb. 18, 2021. The rover is equipped with microphones designed to capture the landing and then the sounds on the ground from Mars.

Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around Mars on successive days last week. AdPerseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars, every one of them from the U.S. Two older NASA landers are still humming along on Mars: 2012′s Curiosity rover and 2018′s InSight. NASA said that the descent was flawless and that the rover came down in a “parking lot" — a relatively flat spot amid hazardous rocks. Hours after the landing, Matt Wallace, NASA deputy project manager, reported that the spacecraft was in great shape.

More than halfway to the red planet after launching from Florida in July NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance is coming in hot -- on the microphone. Perseverance, also known as Mars 2020, launched from Cape Canaveral on a ULA Altas V rocket this July. The robot may look like NASA’s well-known rover, Curiosity, currently roving around on Mars but this bot has a whole new suite of instruments, cameras and two microphones on board. One mic is designed to listen to the pew-pew sounds from the rover’s laser on the SuperCam instrument, another will listen to the Mars atmosphere entry, descent down to the surface and touchdown. It will be a surprise come landing day what the mic picks up because it wasn’t originally designed for space travel.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – NASA’s next Mars rover traveled from California to Kennedy Space Center Wednesday in preparation for a July launch to the red planet. The rover’s heat shield and backshell arrived at the space center in January, according to NASA. Ahead of the launch, NASA plans to officially name the roving robot with the help of K-12 students. When the rover lands on Mars, it will begin its investigation of the red planet in the Jezero Crater. Mars 2020 will follow in the tracks of its predecessor, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover.

NASA is asking for the public’s input on what the Mars 2020 rover should be named before it launches from the Space Coast later this year. Here are the names you can vote on:PromiseVisionEndurancePerseveranceClarityCourageTenacityIngenuityFortitudeMore than 189,000 people have already participated in the poll by Wednesday. The rover is set to launch from Cape Canaveral this summer/"Now that's a Mars rover," Mars 2020 Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations Manager David Gruel said. Mars 2020, equipped with a suite of science instruments, will be searching for signs of life on Mars in the Jezero Crater. The rover will land on Mars Feb. 18, 2021.