Final Mars mission of 2020, NASA's Perseverance rover, set for launch

The year's final mission to Mars -- featuring NASA's most elaborate rover -- launches on Thursdayon an astrobiology mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life -- and to fly a helicopter-drone on another world for the first time.

The rover Perseverance will follow China's rover-orbiter combo and a United Arab Emirates orbiter, both launched last week.Take off is scheduled for 7:50 am (1150 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

If all goes to plan, Perseverance will reach the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, becoming the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997.

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Perseverance, which was developed at the storied Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is an improved version of Curiosity.

Perseverance is slated to scrounge for evidence of past microscopic life in an ancient lakebed. NASA is teaming up with the European Space Agency to return the samples to Earth around 2031.

About the size of a small SUV, it weighs a metric tonne, has 19 cameras, and two microphones -- which scientists hope will be the first to record sound on Mars.

It has a two-meter-long robotic arm, and is powered by a small nuclear generator.

Perseverance's drill will collect around 30 intact rock cores and place them in test tubes, to be collected by a future joint US-European mission.

NASA has chosen the Jezero crater as its landing site, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator.

The US remains the only country to land successfully at Mars. If all goes well next February, Perseverance will become the ninth US spacecraft to operate on the Martian surface.

It is being said Perseverance is arguably the most sophisticated and most exciting of all the Mars missions.

(with inputs from agencies)