Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong works with an Apollo Lunar Sample Return Container during a two-and-a-half-hour lunar surface simulation training exercise. The image was taken on Apr. 18, 1969, in Building 9 at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

The sample tubes carried by NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover are destined to carry the first samples in history from another planet back to Earth. Future scientists will use these carefully selected representatives of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), to look for evidence of potential microbial life present in Mars' ancient past and to answer other key questions about Mars and its history. Perseverance will land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for NASA.

For more information about the mission, go to: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020.