This press conference was recorded at AGU’s 2024 Annual Meeting on 12 December 2024.

The week of AGU 2024, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will likely reach the highest point in its mission. Summiting the rim of Jezero Crater (it took three months of careful navigation – and a lot of slipping and sliding in Martian regolith) has been a goal of the Perseverance science team since the mission was conceived. Why? According to the mission’s project scientist Ken Farley: “The view will be great, but the science results promise to be even greater.”

The impact of that created Jezero Crater billions of years ago excavated Martian bedrock – placing 10 trillion tons of the Red Planet’s insides on and near the newly excavated crater’s rim. These rocks offer up a geologic bonanza from the basement of time as they’re not only the oldest rocks of the mission, but among the oldest in the solar system. During its exploration of the crater rim, the Perseverance science team expects to encounter a wide diversity of samples coming from different locations and depths of the Jezero region.

The Perseverance AGU 2024 briefing will include early science results from the crater’s rim, plans for exploration of the crater’s rim, and the latest science from the floor of Jezero Crater.

The briefing will also highlight a novel AI application – how Perseverance’s “Simple Planner” tool enables the rover to autonomously reschedule activities in response to changes in environmental conditions (such as Mars being warmer than expected, or rover energy/State of charge being higher than expected) as well as execution variations (e.g. activities taking longer or shorter than expected or failing). The energy savings created by Simple Planner translates into more time for science collection and significantly longer drives.

Panelists:

Lindsay Hays, NASA HQ 
Ken Farley, Caltech 
Candice Bedford, Purdue 
Justin Maki, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory