NASA has announced the building of the latest Mars rover named Mars 2020 Rover, which is set to find life on the planet. The Rover is expected to have six wheels to navigate effortlessly on the planet's surface in search for possible traces or signs of life. The review process for a new land rover has ended and the design and construction process has started.
The scheduled lift-off of the rover is set on August 2020 and is expected to land on the planet by February 2021, reports Space. The rover will explore the terrain for two years in a yet to be determined spot on the planet. The Mars 2020 Rover is just one of the few increments of the rover that has set foot on Mars in the past. The latest iteration will still be searching for potential signs of life to back up the other rovers' discovery.
Initially, the planet was thought to always have cold and dry atmospheres with radiation blasted regions. However, the discovery of Mars Rover Curiosity discovered that the landing area may once have hosted a lake or some types of streams that could have once provided a habitable place for organisms billions of years ago.
The Mars 2020 Rover will be used to search for evidence of life in the past and not to discover new forms, according to NASA's official website. The rover will use its seven science instrument to do the probing and potentially bring Mars samples back to Earth for proper analysis.
As of the moment, NASA has not received any samples from the planet. The rover will also bring a carbon dioxide converting device to test the possibility of providing oxygen to future astronauts on the red planet.
Geoffrey Yoder, the associate administrator of NASAꞌs Science Mission Directorate, said that the Mars 2020 Rover is just the first step in a series of multiple campaigns to bring Mars samples to NASA's laboratories.
