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The Planetary Society Releases Official Statement on the Launch of Perseverance
Press Statement
July 30, 2020
Contact
Danielle Gunn
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1-626-793-5100
The Planetary Society Releases Official Statement on the Launch of Perseverance
“These are trying times, but we remain capable of great things.”
Pasadena, CA (July 30, 2020) — The Planetary Society, the world’s largest independent space interest organization, issued the following statements praising the launch of the Perseverance mission:
Today saw the start of a new mission of exploration to the Red Planet. The Planetary Society congratulates the thousands of people around the United States and the world who made it happen.
The rocket and the rover were built here, on Earth. It challenged thousands of people here, on Earth, to work together and enable this mission of peaceful exploration. And in the midst of a global pandemic, it gave people here, on Earth, a reminder of how we can persevere against the odds. These are trying times, but human curiosity is persistent—we remain capable of great things.
The Perseverance rover is an affordable, high-priority scientific mission. But it is only the start of an unprecedented campaign to return carefully-curated samples of the Martian surface back to Earth. We will work to ensure NASA and its international partners have the support and resources to achieve this grand effort.
Bill Nye, Chief Executive Officer of The Planetary Society, added:
Once on the surface, the Perseverance spacecraft will take extraordinary pictures, study the stories that each Mars rock tells, and even listen to the wind. We’ll learn more about Mars, which helps us understand Earth and the cosmos. The mission is underway because of the focus and dedication of the engineers and scientists who managed to launch it toward another world while there’s a historic pandemic here on this one. Perseverance indeed. Let’s go!
Press Resources
Interviews with The Planetary Society's planetary scientists, space policy experts, and leadership are available upon request. Please arrange with Danielle Gunn, chief communications officer, at [email protected].
We invite you to use content from our website to support your storytelling. We appreciate credit and links back to us when appropriate:
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About The Planetary Society
With a global community of more than 2 million space enthusiasts, The Planetary Society is the world’s largest and most influential space advocacy organization. Founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman and today led by CEO Bill Nye, we empower the public to take a meaningful role in advancing space exploration through advocacy, education outreach, scientific innovation, and global collaboration. Together with our members and supporters, we’re on a mission to explore worlds, find life off Earth, and protect our planet from dangerous asteroids. To learn more, visit www.planetary.org.
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