NASA launches Perseverance toward Mars, chasing signs of ancient life

Eight years after NASA announced the mission at a geology conference in San Francisco, a rocket finally carried the plan off the pad. On July 30, 2020, an Atlas V lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:50 UTC, carrying the rover Perseverance and a small experimental helicopter named Ingenuity. The pair were bound for Jezero Crater, an ancient river delta scientists believed might preserve traces of past Martian life. Two other nations' missions shared the same July launch window: the UAE's Hope orbiter and China's Tianwen-1…