The NASA Mars 2020 Mission: Seeking Signs of Ancient Life and Preparing for Sample Return. Este artículo no está disponible.The NASA Mars 2020 Mission: Seeking Signs of Ancient Life and Preparing for Sample Return

NASA’s Mars 2020 mission successfully landed the Perseverance rover in Jezero crater on February 18, 2021.This book provides the definitive pre-landing documentation of the Mars 2020 mission, its scientific payload elements, and its exploration area.The chapters in this volume include detailed descriptions of: The Perseverance mission, and its relationship to a possible Mars Sample Return campaign; The geology of the mission’s exploration environment in Jezero crater; and The purpose, design and operation of all seven instruments aboard the rover (Mastcam-Z, SHERLOC, RIMFAX,  Supercam, MOXIE, PIXL, and MEDA) as well as the engineering cameras and the Mars helicopter Ingenuity. NASA’s ambitious Mars 2020 mission extends a long arc of Martian exploration by seeking evidence that life may once have existed on Mars, and by preparing a collection of samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission. Mars 2020 will also enable future exploration by characterizing modern weather conditions and by demonstrating new technologies.Previously published in Space Science Reviews in the Topical Collection "The Mars 2020 Mission"

Ken Farley is the W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. His research centers on development and application of geochemistry techniques, especially involving isotopes of the noble gases, to a wide range of terrestrial and solar system questions. Specific areas of interest include geochronology of both Earth and Mars, the geochemical evolution of the Earth, and the behavior of noble gases in minerals. He began his professorial career at Caltech in 1993.
Ken Williford has been a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2012, and he serves as the Deputy Project Scientist for the Mars 2020 rover mission and the Director of the Astrobiogeochemistry Laboratory (abcLab). Ken is an astrobiologist specializing in organic and light isotope geochemistry, and his research is focused on understanding the formation, preservation and detection of signs of life and planetary evolution in geologic samples.

Katie Stack has been a research scientist at the Jet Propsulsion Laboratory since 2014. She serves as the Deputy Project Scientist for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission, and is a participating scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover mission. Katie is a planetary geologist specializing in sedimentology, stratigraphy, and geologic mapping of planetary surfaces. Her research focuses on the Martian sedimentary rock record, using orbiter and rover image data to understand the evolution of ancient surface processes on Mars.