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A rocket blasts off, spewing clouds of smoke across a green landscape intersected by roadways and backdropped by a blue ocean.
Mission to Mars Student Challenge.

Education Plan: Launch Your Mission

Before they can conduct research on Mars, students need to launch their spacecraft. Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talks about her job on the Perseverance Mars rover mission and some of the important factors to consider when launching a mission to the Red Planet. Watch en Español: Seleccione subtítulos en Español bajo el ícono de configuración.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mission This Week

Now that we’ve designed our spacecraft, it’s time to launch our mission. This week, older students will engage in the engineering design process and data collection while younger students will use geometry and develop their spatial skills.

Students will learn about Newton’s laws of motion and brainstorm a rocket design. They can then create a physical model, test their model, collect performance data, and redesign and retest their rocket until it's performing at its best.

Students will also decide how to measure performance. For example, is flight distance or accuracy more important? Here’s Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with some expert advice about how NASA launches spacecraft.

Tips This Week

  • Launching rockets is great fun! Caution students to be careful to aim their rockets away from people and to wear eye protection.

  • The simplest rockets involve either balloons or straws. Any balloon will do, it doesn’t have to be a particular shape. If students don’t have straws, encourage them to make a paper straw.

This Week's Education Resources

Use these STEM lesson plans, projects, videos, and articles to get students learning how to launch a Mars mission. Lessons and projects are standards-aligned. These assignments can be done in any order and in part or in full as schedules allow.

More Education Plans

A spotlight shines on the Perseverance rover in a dark chamber as an engineer covered in white protective clothing works on the rover.
Education Plan

Introduction

Learn about the challenge and how to help students create their very own mission to Mars.

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.

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.

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