A NASA rover on Mars is tackling a new challenge and climbing to the rim of a crater.

A NASA rover on Mars by chance had its microphone on when a whirling tower of red dust passed overhead last year and caught the sound.

NASA’s newest Mars rover has completed its first sample grab, tucking away the tube of rock for return to Earth.

NASA's newest Mars rover has completed its first sample grab, tucking away the tube of rock for return to Earth.

NASA's newest Mars rover may have successfully collected its first rock sample for return to Earth, after last month's attempt came up empty.

NASA's little Mars helicopter has aced its second test flight.

NASA's experimental Mars helicopter has taken flight.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is achieving some major milestones this week.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A piece of the Wright brothers’ first airplane is on Mars. NASA’s experimental Martian helicopter holds a small swatch of fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer, the space agency revealed Tuesday. The helicopter, named Ingenuity, hitched a ride to the red planet with the Perseverance rover, arriving last month. It will mark a "Wright brothers' moment," noted Bobby Braun, director for planetary science at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The swatch made the 300 million-mile journey to Mars with the blessing of the Wright brothers' great-grandniece and great-grandnephew, said park curator Steve Lucht.

This photo made available by NASA was taken during the first drive of the Perseverance rover on Mars on Thursday, March 4, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA’s newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on the odometer in its first test drive. The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position Thursday, two weeks after setting down on the red planet to seek signs of past life. AdPerseverance — NASA's biggest and most elaborate rover yet — became the ninth U.S. spacecraft to successfully land on Mars on Feb. 18. China hopes to land its smaller rover — currently orbiting the red planet — in another few months.

“It gives me goose bumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference. “These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams," said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team. AdSix off-the-shelf color cameras were devoted to entry, descent and landing, looking up and down from different perspectives. The lone microphone turned on for landing failed, but NASA got some snippets of sound after touchdown: the whirring of the rover’s systems and wind gusts.

This Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 photo provided by NASA shows the Perseverance rover lowered towards the surface of Mars during its powered descent. (NASA via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The world got its first close-up look at a Mars landing on Friday, as NASA released a stunning picture of its newest rover being lowered onto the dusty red surface. NASA equipped the spacecraft with a record 25 cameras and two microphones, many of which were turned on during Thursday’s descent. It's the ninth time that NASA has successfully landed on Mars __ and the fifth rover. As it did with 2012's Curiosity rover — still roaming 2,300 miles (3,750 kilometers) away — NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed Perseverance descending beneath its massive parachute.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A NASA rover streaked through the orange Martian sky and landed on the planet Thursday, accomplishing the riskiest step yet in an epic quest to bring back rocks that could answer whether life ever existed on Mars. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around Mars on successive days last week. AdPerseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars, every one of them from the U.S. Two older NASA landers are still humming along on Mars: 2012′s Curiosity rover and 2018′s InSight. Perseverance promptly sent back two grainy, black-and-white photos of Mars’ pockmarked, pimply-looking surface, the rover’s shadow visible in the frame of one picture.

This illustration provided by NASA depicts the Mars 2020 spacecraft carrying the Perseverance rover as it approaches Mars. Perseverance's $3 billion mission is the first leg in a U.S.-European effort to bring Mars samples to Earth in the next decade. Almost 50 years after the first casualty at Mars, NASA is attempting its hardest Martian touchdown yet. The rover named Perseverance is headed Thursday for a compact 5-mile-by-4-mile (8-kilometer-by-6.4-kilometer) patch on the edge of an ancient river delta. AdROUND-TRIP TICKETScientists have wanted to get hold of Mars rocks ever since NASA’s Mariners provided the first close pictures a half-century ago.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that will launch to Mars arrives at Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The rocket scheduled to launch on Thursday will land on Mars in February 2021 and the Mars 2020 rover, named Perseverance, will study Martian geology. (AP Photo/John Raoux)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The summers third and final mission to Mars featuring NASA's most elaborate life-hunting rover is on the verge of liftoff. The rover Perseverance will follow Chinas rover-orbiter combo and a United Arab Emirates orbiter, both launched last week. First things first, though: Good flying weather is forecast for United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.

This illustration made available by NASA depicts the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on the red planet's surface near the Perseverance rover, left. NASA is upping the ante with its newest rover headed to Mars. Set to rocket away this week from Florida, Perseverance is NASA's brawniest and brainiest Martian rover yet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)

This illustration made available by NASA depicts the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on the red planet's surface near the Perseverance rover, left. Set to rocket away this week from Florida, Perseverance is NASA's brawniest and brainiest Martian rover yet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. With eight successful Mars landings, NASA is upping the ante with its newest rover. The spacecraft Perseverance set for liftoff this week is NASAs biggest and brainiest Martian rover yet. CURIOSITY:The six-wheeled, car-sized Perseverance is a copycat of NASAs Curiosity rover, prowling Mars since 2012, but with more upgrades and bulk.

BEIJING China launched its most ambitious Mars mission yet on Thursday in a bold attempt to join the United States in successfully landing a spacecraft on the red planet. And the U.S. is aiming to launch Perseverance, its most sophisticated Mars rover ever, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next week. Chinas tandem spacecraft with both an orbiter and a rover will take seven months to reach Mars, like the others. The UAE spacecraft Amal, or Hope, which will orbit Mars but not land, is the Arab worlds first interplanetary mission. NASA's Perseverance rover is up next.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA has delayed the launch of its newest Mars rover yet again to the end of July at the earliest this time for a rocket issue. Rocket maker United Launch Alliance needs extra time to deal with a liquid oxygen sensor line that showed questionable readings during a recent practice countdown, officials said Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates and China, meanwhile, still are pressing ahead with launches this month or next of Mars spacecraft. Russia and the European Space Agency had to bow out, delaying their Mars rover until 2022 because of delayed spacecraft testing and travel limitations due to the coronavirus pandemic. ___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education.