NASA and a historic trip to Mars .. "The goal is clear"

NASA will launch an ambitious mission to Mars on Thursday, launching the "Perseverance" spacecraft, a six-wheeled robot and a small helicopter.

The mission aims to test equipment for future manned missions and search for evidence of life on the surface of the red planet in the foot.

The mission, which costs $ 2.4 billion, is scheduled to start at 7:50 EST (11:50 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida, which is NASA's ninth flight to explore the surface of Mars.

The UAE and China launched two separate Mars probe this month in a demonstration of technology skills and ambition.

Perseverance will launch aboard the Atlas 5 missile, made by United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and the vehicle, the size of the car, is expected to reach Mars in February.

It is scheduled to land on the base of a 250-meter-deep pit known as Giziero. This crater was a lake 3.5 billion years ago and scientists believe it may bear evidence of a possible microbial life that had previously existed on Mars.

"This is the first time in history that we have gone to Mars with the clear goal of finding life in another world," NASA director Jim Braidenstein said during a brief press briefing on Wednesday.

For the first time, the spacecraft will attempt to sample Mars rocks, return them to Earth, collect materials in small capsules and leave them on the surface until they are picked up by a spacecraft in the future.

The "Perseverance" carries a small helicopter with a weight of 1.8 kg, called "Ingenuity", and it will be tested on Mars for the first time.

"Imagine a day when we would land a robot on Mars, and this robot could send perhaps more than 10 helicopters in different directions to achieve different discoveries," Braidenstein said.

After NASA landed with its first rover, the "Sojourner", on Mars in 1997, it sent Spirit and Opportunity.

These missions revealed the geological nature of vast plains on the surface of Mars and reached evidence of ancient water formations, along with other discoveries.

NASA also successfully dispatched 3 probes, Pathfinder, Phoenix and Insight.

The United States has plans to send astronauts to Mars in the 1930s as part of the Artemis program, which aims to send manned flights to the moon in preparation for sending humans to Mars.

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