A Rover's Story

Warga’s fictional Resilience rover is based mainly on the real-life Perseverance rover, albeit she took some inspiration from the Curiosity rover as well. Perseverance launched on its Mars 2020 mission on July 30, 2020. Its mission, like that of Resilience, involved collecting soil and rock samples that it could potentially bring back to Earth for further study. After a seven-month journey, Perseverance landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, in the Jezero Crater, which scientists at NASA have determined holds great potential for yielding evidence of past life on Mars. In some Slavic languages, jezero means “lake”; this name is appropriate, as the crater’s rich clay and mineral deposits suggest it once held water. This crater was also the landing site for the fictional Resilience.

Resilience shares many similarities with its real-world counterpart. Like Perseverance, Resilience is equipped with a chemical laboratory, over 20 cameras, and a mechanical arm outfitted with a drill and other tools. Resilience also went through many of the same tests as Perseverance before embarking on its mission, including ones for terrain and temperature. To enhance Resilience’s experiences in the lab, Warga added some additional details, such as the Shake and Bake test.