The plan for the Perseverance rover mission has unfolded over the last 10 years. It's the next step in understanding the history of Mars and if ancient life once lived on the surface.

But like all ideas, it started out as a concept on paper. Scientists and engineers have brought it to life, building it from the ground up and equipping it with new features and instruments that stand out from the previous rovers.

And artists have illustrated that journey along the way. Here's a timeline of the rover, from early days to preparing for launch, through the work of artists at NASA.

Scott Hulme, one of the leads for NASA's Mars Public Engagement team, created the first sketch of the Mars 2020 rover, the original name before it became Perseverance. Based on the earliest, basic 3D graphics depicting the rover design, that sketch was used to announce the next generation of rover that would explore Mars.

Joby Harris, artist and visual strategist at The Studio at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, has worked under the direction of Hulme and team co-leader Carolina Carnalla-Martinez on artwork and design supporting the Perseverance mission for the last five years.

Harris, along with other artists and designers in The Studio, collaborated with scientists and engineers at NASA to discuss rover imagery, angles of the rover and even images of Mars to use in landscape renderings.

Harris is part of a small design team that sits within an organization called 18x along with communicators, educators, news, film, photography and social media experts, he said.

Much of the team's work is used for public engagement to let people know about upcoming missions and their capabilities, envisioning the rovers and what they will do before they're on Mars.

These included several campaigns, such as "Send Your Name to Mars," which encouraged people to submit their names for inclusion on chips carried by the rover and the "Name the Rover" contest, which invited students from kindergarten through 12th grade to share name ideas and essays supporting their choices.

Harris designed the ticket, which used a rover image by NASA HQ art director Jenny Mottar. The image was based on an early design, so it shows four navigation cameras, like those on Curiosity. Now, Perseverance has two navigation cameras.

The kid-friendly design for the "Name the Rover" campaign was based on Curiosity rover art drawn by Alexander Novati, kids programming Space Place team artist at NASA. Curiosity's rover art was updated to show the design for Perseverance.

As the design of Perseverance changed many times over the years, Hulme and sometimes Harris updated the renderings of the rover shared with the public.

This illustration is based on a 3D rendering by animator Kevin Lane.

Once the names were gathered to include on Perseverance's chips, which will take 10.9 million names to Mars, Harris and Studio design team members David Delgado, Lois Kim and public engagement team member Kaitly

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