Mars rover Perseverance refines course toward Red Planet

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Four more such maneuvers are scheduled before the rover's February 2021 landing.

An artist's illustration of NASA's Mars rover Perseverance en route to Mars.
An artist's illustration of NASA's Mars rover Perseverance en route to Mars. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover just fired up its deep-space thrusters for the first time.

Perseverance, the centerpiece of NASA's $2.7 billion Mars 2020 mission, refined its course toward the Red Planet with a trajectory-correction maneuver on Friday (Aug. 14), 15 days after the life-hunting rover lifted off.

The maneuver, which employed eight thrusters on Perseverance's cruise stage — the vehicle that carries the rover through deep space — was a success, mission team members announced via Twitter on Friday.

Related: The Mars Perseverance rover mission in photos

Perseverance's mission plan calls for five trajectory-correction maneuvers to set the rover up for its pinpoint landing inside Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The four remaining engine burns are scheduled to take place on Sept. 28, Dec. 20, Feb. 10 and Feb. 16. (There's also a backup opportunity on Feb. 17 if needed, and a final "contingency" window on Feb. 18, just nine hours before touchdown.)

Perseverance launched July 30 on a mission to seek out signs of ancient Mars life inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which hosted a lake and river delta in the ancient past. The rover will also collect and cache samples for future return to Earth, potentially as early as 2031. 

Mars 2020 will test out new exploration technologies as well. For example, a tiny helicopter named Ingenuity is traveling to the Red Planet on the rover's belly and will attempt the first-ever rotorcraft flight on a world beyond Earth. 

Additionally, one of Perseverance's instruments, called MOXIE (short for "Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment"), will generate oxygen from the carbon dioxide-dominated Martian atmosphere.  A scaled-up version of MOXIE could one day help human pioneers get a foothold on Mars, NASA officials have said. (The agency aims to put boots on the Red Planet in the 2030s.)

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.