Mars Perseverance Rover
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Printable information sheet to attach to Mars Perseverance Rover
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Owner:
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Geocaching HQ
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Released:
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Tuesday, 21 July 2020
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Origin:
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Florida, United States
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Recently Spotted:
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Geocaching and NASA head to Mars with the Perseverance Rover
Mars 2020 is part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. This specific mission addresses high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key questions about the potential for life there. On the day/sol when the rover landed on Mars, Geocaching HQ launched this page about Perseverance and Geocaching's history with regards to space:
Perseverance has four main science goals:
- Determine whether life ever arose on Mars
- Characterize the climate of Mars
- Characterize the geology of Mars
- Prepare for human exploration
Timeline:
- July 30, 2020: launch with an Atlas V-541 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
- February 18, 2021 / Sol 0: arrival at Octavia E. Butler Landing in Jezero Crater, Mars
- March 17, 2021 / Sol 26: photograph taken on Mars and sent to Earth! By logging the trackable, you immediately earn a new souvenir for your profile to celebrate the first interplanetary trackable.
Thanks to the Mars 2020 SHERLOC instrument team at Johnson Space Center, the newest mission to Mars contains a tracking code, truly taking geocaching out of this world!
The trackable code is specially printed on a one-inch, unique, glass disk that is part of the rover’s calibration target. See the picture below. Cameras and other tools on the rover use calibration targets to determine accurate colors, brightness, focus, and other information. This calibration target is specifically for the SHERLOC’s WATSON camera. The SHERLOC instrument is a spectrometer on the rover’s arm that uses laser light to classify minerals and look for organic compounds. WATSON, its sidekick camera system, is used for engineering, operations and science imaging on the surface of Mars.
How can I log this trackable if I’m not also going to Mars?
If you’re not blasting off anytime soon, don’t worry. You’ll still be able to log the Mars Rover.
The tracking code is on the WATSON camera’s calibration target. After Perseverance lands on Mars and NASA does a few other tasks, that camera takes a picture of the tracking code itself and sends that picture back to Earth. You can log the Rover by finding the code in that picture.
Look through NASA’s raw images. Can you find the image of our trackable item in that large gallery? Be sure to filter for pictures taken by SHERLOC and WATSON.
Please note that Geocaching HQ is giving explicit permission as the owner to log this trackable virtually.
I'm interested in learning more.

Gallery Images related to Mars Perseverance Rover
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Tracking History () View Map
Glal13 discovered it
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kaka010136 discovered it
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jacc3 discovered it
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Heard about this one in Highlights magazine! So cool!
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Calimero20Almresi19 discovered it
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Bei Recherchearbeiten gefunden
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Fawkes90 discovered it
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muskratMB discovered it
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Olivandy discovered it
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Next time I go to Mars, I will physically find this TB.
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JoergWausW discovered it
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did I find the right code? I guess I did...
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Littlelawyer discovered it
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We learned about this at a NASA presentation about Mars with our homeschool group.
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MamaLea discovered it
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Our homeschooling group was fortunate to have a presentation from NASA Ambassador Kristina Schwartz. In addition to learning about the history of Mars science we got to spot this trackable! We also learned the Easter egg encoded in this tracking code. Thanks for the adventure!
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