The new mission, which is set to launch on Thursday (30 July), will launch the rover to the 45km-wide Jezero crater which contains sediments of an ancient river delta, a location where evidence of past life could be preserved if it ever existed on the planet.

A sample of Mars rock from the Natural History Museum’s collection will also be sent back to the Red Planet and used by the rover to test its instruments.

Perseverance comes equipped with a combined high-precision laser, camera and spectrometer instrument called ‘SHERLOC’ (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) that will be able to illuminate rock features as fine as a human hair and decipher the composition of rock samples.

The instrument is potentially vulnerable to losing its precision if the rover suffers a slight change in temperature or encounters moving sands that could lead to misalignments.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, the museum sample will be used as a control to confirm the instrument is working correctly. The sample, dubbed SaU 008, was discovered in Oman in 1999 and came to Earth via a meteorite originating from Mars.

Professor Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College London, will help Nasa oversee mission operations from a science and engineering point of view. “This is crucial to understand what the Martian climate was like early in Mars’ history and whether it was habitable for life,” he said. “This information will be used to help us define the best spots to collect rock samples for future return to Earth.

“Laboratory analyses of such samples on Earth will enable us search for morphological and chemical signatures of ancient life on Mars and also answer key questions about Mars’ geological evolution.”

Professor Mark Sephton, also from Imperial, will help identify samples of Mars that could contain evidence of past life. “I hope that the samples we select and return will help current and future generations of scientists answer the question of whether there was ever life on the Red Planet”, he said.

“With one carefully chosen sample from Mars, we could discover that the history of life on the Earth is not unique in the universe.”

In addition to trying to find former signs of life on Mars, Perseverance will gather information into the possibility of future human habitation on the Red Planet. It will carry technology that will pave the way for human missions to Mars, including an experiment to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere.

Dr Keyron Hickman-Lewis, who is preparing to join the Natural History Museum and will study the data from the Jezero crater looking for potential signatures of ancient microbial life, said: “Mars probably presents our best chance of finding life elsewhere in the Solar System and the fact that Mars 2020 plans to prepare samples for eventual return to Earth gives us a unique opportunity to discover traces of that life.”

The new mission, which is set to launch on Thursday (30 July), will launch the rover to the 45km-wide Jezero crater which contains sediments of an ancient river delta, a location where evidence of past life could be preserved if it ever existed on the planet.

A sample of Mars rock from the Natural History Museum’s collection will also be sent back to the Red Planet and used by the rover to test its instruments.

Perseverance comes equipped with a combined high-precision laser, camera and spectrometer instrument called ‘SHERLOC’ (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) that will be able to illuminate rock features as fine as a human hair and decipher the composition of rock samples.

The instrument is potentially vulnerable to losing its precision if the rover suffers a slight change in temperature or encounters moving sands that could lead to misalignments.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, the museum sample will be used as a control to confirm the instrument is working correctly. The sample, dubbed SaU 008, was discovered in Oman in 1999 and came to Earth via a meteorite originating from Mars.

Professor Sanjeev Gupta, from Imperial College London, will help Nasa oversee mission operations from a science and engineering point of view. “This is crucial to understand what the Martian climate was like early in Mars’ history and whether it was habitable for life,” he said. “This information will be used to help us define the best spots to collect rock samples for future return to Earth.

“Laboratory analyses of such samples on Earth will enable us search for morphological and chemical signatures of ancient life on Mars and also answer key questions about Mars’ geological evolution.”

Professor Mark Sephton, also from Imperial, will help identify samples of Mars that could contain evidence of past life. “I hope that the samples we select and return will help current and future generations of scientists answer the question of whether there was ever life on the Red Planet”, he said.

“With one carefully chosen sample from Mars, we could discover that the history of life on the Earth is not unique in the universe.”

In addition to trying to find former signs of life on Mars, Perseverance will gather information into the possibility of future human habitation on the Red Planet. It will carry technology that will pave the way for human missions to Mars, including an experiment to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere.

Dr Keyron Hickman-Lewis, who is preparing to join the Natural History Museum and will study the data from the Jezero crater looking for potential signatures of ancient microbial life, said: “Mars probably presents our best chance of finding life elsewhere in the Solar System and the fact that Mars 2020 plans to prepare samples for eventual return to Earth gives us a unique opportunity to discover traces of that life.”