NASA's Mars Rover Sets a Driving Record

One of NASA's Mars rovers has just broken an off-Earth driving record. The New York Times reports that Perseverance hit 28.1 miles on its tracking system, achieved over the years since it landed on the red planet's Jezero Crater in February 2021. That busts the record previously achieved by the Opportunity rover, which was in operation for nearly 15 years before it went silent in 2018. That unit had reached a total of 28.06 miles before it petered out, meaning that Perseverance covered the same distance in about a third of the time, per NASA.

The Times notes that Perseverance had been set to break Opportunity's record over the summer, but that it had stumbled upon a bunch of space rocks that it stopped to study for a couple of months. It also appears that the rover looks good to go for quite a while longer. "Perseverance's engineering hardware and instruments are in excellent shape with all redundant systems still available," Steven Lee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tells Reuters, adding that he expects the rover to be able to operate into the 2030s and possibly beyond. The Times has more highlights of Perseverance's adventures since it landed on Mars nearly six years ago.