NASA briefing on early Perseverance Mars Rover science happens Wednesday

NASA has announced that it will be holding a briefing on early science discoveries from the Perseverance Mars Rover next week. The virtual media briefing will take place at 1 PM EDT on Wednesday, July 21. At the briefing, NASA will discuss early science results from the Perseverance Mars Rover, among other topics.

One of the other key topics covered is NASA's preparations to collect the first Martian samples gathered by Perseverance to return to Earth for future study. There are experiments and science that can be conducted on the rocks here on Earth that is impossible to conduct on Mars. One of the main goals of the exploration of Mars is to discover if the planet had past life or might currently harbor life of some sort.

The briefing will be held at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is managed. Anyone can tune in and listen to the briefing, which will be broadcast via NASA television, the NASA app, and the NASA website. The briefing is also being live-streamed on social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook page.

NASA personnel participating in the briefing include:

  • Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science, NASA Headquarters
  • Jennifer Trosper, Perseverance project manager, JPL
  • Olivier Toupet, Perseverance enhanced navigation team lead, JPL
  • Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, Caltech
  • Vivian Sun, Perseverance science campaign co-lead, JPL
  • The briefing will also feature a question and answer session for members of the media and the public. Questions will be chosen via social media during the briefing using the #AskNASA hashtag. Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, and began the science phase of its mission on June 1.