Informative And Education Videos

In order to slow down spacecraft quickly and safely as they land, we get some help from an unexpected source: the planet’s atmosphere! To use the air around a planet to our advantage, we use heat shields, which have an air-resistant design. Learn more about heat shields, like LOFTID, and how they may help us land on Mars! For more information about the LOFTID technology demonstration, click here: https://go.nasa.gov/3aRdADV

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is filling sample tubes with rocky material on the Red Planet as the agency works on the next steps to get them safely back to Earth. The Mars Sample Return campaign would bring samples collected by the Perseverance rover to Earth for detailed study. The campaign involves an international interplanetary relay team, including the European Space Agency (ESA). These samples could answer a key question: did life ever exist on Mars? Aaron Yazzie, who works on the Mars Sample Return campaign, explains the work being done at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to ensure the safe return of the sample tubes. For more information on Mars Sample Return, visit mars.nasa.gov/msr Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech