Less than a year after making its first moves on the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover has set a new Mars distance record.
Using its self-driving function, the vehicle last week traveled a whopping 806.3 feet (245.76 meters) in a single Martian day, or sol. To put that into perspective, the former longest Mars drive in one day was 702 feet (214 meters), completed by NASA’s Opportunity rover in 2015.
“After a few months exploring this area, I’m on the move. Thanks to my self-driving function, I can cover more ground in a day than ever before,” the rover tweeted on Sunday, adding that it has “places to go [and] rocks to see.”
Built with a powerful auto-navigation system (AutoNav), NASA’s six-wheeled robot can make 3D maps of its terrain, identify hazards, and plan routes around obstacles without help from us humans back on Earth. Perseverance can hit a top speed of 393 feet (120 meters) per hour—which gives you a better understanding of why it can take so long for the rover to cover such short distances even if they are record-breaking.
