Perseverance Rover Sets the Record for Farthest Drive on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance rover has driven more miles than any other vehicle on a world beyond Earth. The agency announced the record on Tuesday, October 13. As of October 11, the odometer read 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles), counted from the rover’s arrival on Mars in 2021.
The record fell on Sunday, October 11, the rover’s 2,006th Martian day. A 91-meter (299.6-foot) drive carried it past the 45.16 kilometers (28.06 miles) that Opportunity logged between 2004 and 2018. Perseverance has also gone farther than any rover that has operated on the moon.
Five and a half years to Opportunity’s fifteen
Opportunity took almost 15 years to build its total. Perseverance needed about five and a half.
Earlier this year, on June 14, the rover finished a marathon distance (42.195 kilometers) on its 1,890th Martian day. That took five years and four months. Opportunity needed 11 years and two months to reach the same mark.
The rover picks its own line
NASA credits much of the progress to AutoNav, the self-driving system that assesses the terrain and chooses a route. More than 90% of Perseverance’s total distance has been driven with it.
Ancient ground at the finish line
The record came on a drive toward an area called Idubi, across a stretch off the crater’s western rim that the team nicknamed Lac de Charmes. NASA says the rover is surveying some of the most ancient terrain ever encountered in the solar system there.
Perseverance is searching for evidence of ancient microbial life and has collected rock and soil samples for a possible return to Earth. It has focused on Jezero Crater in the northern hemisphere, a region believed to have held a lake billions of years ago.
Plenty of road left
Steven Lee, project manager for NASA’s two Mars rovers, says the rover’s hardware and instruments are in excellent shape, with all redundant systems still available. A recent assessment found its systems can operate well into the 2030s, likely beyond.
The mission originally planned for 20 kilometers of driving. Engineers are now testing the mobility system to show it can handle 100 kilometers or more, with hardware tested to the equivalent of 150 to 300 kilometers. NASA has approved an extension that keeps the rover exploring the crater rim until roughly the end of 2028.
Curiosity, its companion rover, works in Gale Crater near the Martian equator. It has driven 23.71 miles (38.15 kilometers) since landing in 2012.
