NASA’s Perseverance rover has driven farther than any vehicle has ever travelled on a world other than Earth, Reuters reports. Five and a half years after landing in Mars’s Jezero Crater, it has covered 28.1 miles (45.2km), edging past the 45km set by its predecessor Opportunity between 2004 and 2018, and beyond the distance of any rover on the Moon.
Guinness World Records has certified the milestone, and around 100 members of the rover team gathered at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to celebrate with the certificate. Much of the credit goes to the rover’s self-driving system: about 90 percent of its drives are now autonomous, with Perseverance photographing the ground, building a 3D map and picking the safest route as it goes.
The rover, which is searching for signs that microbes once lived in an ancient lake bed, is in good health. Project manager Steven Lee said it is capable of operating well into the 2030s, likely beyond, and engineers are testing its wheels for drives of 100km or more.
Source: Reuters