JPL Logo
Education
A spotlight shines on the Perseverance rover in a dark chamber as an engineer covered in white protective clothing works on the rover.
Mission to Mars Student Challenge.

Education Plan: Introducing the Challenge

NASA engineering and education experts discuss how to get students engaged in the Perseverance Mars rover landing and answer audience questions. Watch en Español: Seleccione subtítulos en Español bajo el ícono de configuración.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mission This Week

Welcome to NASA’s Mission to Mars Student Challenge! This is your guide to leading students through how to design, build, launch, and land a Mars mission. Your students will apply their creativity, as well as science and math knowledge, to explore the Red Planet. Not a scientist or engineer? That's okay! You're going to learn everything you need to know while preparing for and conducting these lessons.

Tips This Week

  • In this standards-aligned challenge, students learn about Mars, design a mission to explore the planet, build and test model spacecraft and components, and engage in scientific exploration. The challenge takes students through seven stages, which can be completed in full as a seven-week activity or in part, as schedules allow.

  • All lessons and activities are standards-aligned to Next Generation Science and Common Core Math Standards.

  • Short on materials? In most cases, materials can be improvised. It’s all part of the engineering design process.

More Education Plans

Channels, mountains stretch across this overhead view of Jezero Crater overlaid with an oil-slick of colors representing science data.
Education Plan

Learn About Mars

Before they can launch to Mars, students need to learn more about where they're going and why.

A dotted line shows a landing capsule entering Mars' atmosphere, curving to the right, releasing a parachute, then curving down and dropping a rover on Mars.
Education Plan

Plan Your Mission

Once we have some knowledge about our destination, it’s time to plan our mission to Mars.

Three people in white smocks position the head-like masthead of the Perseverance Rover with a design schematic on a screen behind them.
Education Plan

Design Your Spacecraft

Students must use creative thinking to brainstorm a design for their Mars spacecraft.

A rocket blasts off, spewing clouds of smoke across a green landscape intersected by roadways and backdropped by a blue ocean.
Education Plan

Launch Your Mission

Students will learn about Newton’s laws of motion and brainstorm a rocket design.

An overhead view of the rover suspended on cords and tethers shows the dark brown surface of Mars as exhaust from the sky crane sweeps dust to the side of the frame.
Education Plan

Land on Mars

Landing on Mars is tricky, and NASA engineers have to do a lot of designing, testing, and redesigning to make sure spacecraft can land safely.

A squiggly path flows from the Jezero Crater floor to Hawksbill Gap and down to Enchanted Lake where the rover's current location is starred.
Education Plan

Surface Operations

Students will identify areas of geological interest and put scientific instruments to use.

10 photo strips show sample tubes deposited on a rocky brown surface, the rover casting its shadow over each view.
Education Plan

Sample Handling

Students learn how we sample rocks on Mars and package these samples for return to Earth sometime in the future.

FAQs