On February 18, 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater on Mars — an ancient lake bed chosen for its potential to preserve signs of past microbial life. The rover carried MOXIE (which demonstrated extracting oxygen from Mars's CO2 atmosphere), a sample caching system to collect rocks for eventual return to Earth, and Ingenuity — a 4-pound helicopter that on April 19, 2021, achieved the first powered, controlled flight on another planet. Originally planned for 5 flights over 30 days, Ingenuity flew 72 times over nearly 3 years before its rotor was damaged. Perseverance collected dozens of rock core samples and deposited backup caches on the surface, awaiting a future Mars Sample Return mission.
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