45 Kilometers on Mars: 'Perseverance' Leads All Off-Earth Vehicles

On six wheels and among Martian rocks, the Perseverance rover has covered a distance unmatched by any other vehicle on the surface of an extraterrestrial world, leveraging its ability to choose its own path and avoid obstacles while moving.

NASA announced that the rover’s odometer reached 45.22 kilometers on October 11, surpassing the previous record held by the Opportunity rover, which had traveled 45.16 kilometers. Perseverance covered this distance in about 5.5 years, whereas its predecessor took nearly 15 years to achieve a similar milestone.

Behind this progress is the AutoNav autonomous navigation system, which images the terrain as the rover moves, builds a three-dimensional map of obstacles, and then determines a path between points selected by the mission team on Earth. The rover has used this system to assess its route during more than 90% of the distance it has traveled.

The new record comes as the rover heads toward the Edom region near the western edge of Jezero Crater, where scientists hope to find evidence of ancient systems in which hot water flowed among rocks.

Longer traverses enable access to a greater diversity of geological formations and the collection of samples that help elucidate the planet’s history. The rover’s original plan anticipated covering only about 20 kilometers, but it has already exceeded twice that distance. NASA has approved extending its exploration of the crater rim until approximately late 2028.