Catch Mars mania as a traveling exhibit visits more than a dozen towns across the U.S. with lifelike models of NASA’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter.
While NASA’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity Mars Helicopter are hard at work exploring Mars hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, their “twin” models will be visiting the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science as part of the “Roving With Perseverance” roadshow.
The Perseverance & Ingenuity replicas will be on display at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science from November 19, 2022 through late spring, 2023.
As big as a car, with its camera “head” rising high, Perseverance’s six-wheeled lookalike towers over most visitors, while Ingenuity’s double highlights just how small the history-making rotorcraft is.
In addition to the spacecraft models, during the grand opening on November 19 & 20, NASA Perseverance and Ingenuity scientists and engineers and the Museum’s own rover science team member will give in-person and virtual talks and answer questions at various museums.
Only 19 locations throughout the United States will be visited with this traveling exhibit. All the museums are members of NASA’s Museum and Informal Education Alliance.
About the Mission:
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.