Mars 2020
Computer-design drawing for NASA's 2020 Mars Rover
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| Mission type | Rover |
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| Operator | NASA / JPL |
| Website | http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars2020/ |
| Mission duration | Planned: 1 Mars year |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | July 2020 (planned) |
| Rocket | Atlas V 541 |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral SLC-41 |
| Mars rover | |
| Spacecraft component | Rover |
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Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission by NASA's Mars Exploration Program with a planned launch in 2020. It is intended to investigate an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars, investigate its surface geological processes and history, including the assessment of its past habitability, the possibility of past life on Mars, and potential for preservation of biosignatures within accessible geological materials.
The as-yet unnamed Mars 2020 was announced by NASA on 4 December 2012 at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The rover's design will be derived from the Curiosity rover, but will carry a different scientific payload. Nearly 60 proposals for rover instrumentation were evaluated and, on 31 July 2014, NASA announced the payload for the rover.
The rover is planned to be launched in 2020. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will manage the mission. The payload and science instruments for the mission were selected in July 2014 after an open competition for payloads based on scientific objectives set one year earlier. However, the mission is contingent on receiving adequate funding. Precise mission details will be determined by the mission's science definition team.
The mission is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, and its Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG), as well as the associate administrator of science John Grunsfeld, endorsed a sample retrieval and return mission to Earth for scientific analysis. Regardless, a mission requirement is that it must help prepare NASA for its long-term sample return or manned mission efforts.
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