The evening of Aug. 1 felt a lot like a birthday to NASA planetary scientist Justin Simon. On that night, Simon attended a virtual watch party for researchers preparing to use NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover to conduct the first detailed study of a candidate rock target for drilling and collecting a sample. Ready to unwrap presents, Simon and his fellow researchers anxiously refreshed their inboxes to see the first downlinked and up-close images of the rock—that could help them better understand the geologic history of the rover's landing site.
