Event
Perseverance rover travels 45.22 km, setting a Mars rover record
2 reports · 2 sources
NASA's Perseverance rover completed a drive on October 11 (Sol 2006), bringing its cumulative mileage to 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles), breaking the 45.16-kilometer record held by Opportunity and setting the record for the farthest distance driven on another celestial body; its engineering twin on Earth received a medal from Guinness World Records. According to the JPL team, this achievement is largely due to Perseverance's stronger autonomous driving capability: it is the first Mars rover to drive autonomously 90% of the time, and its enhanced autonomous system includes a second processor with an FPGA to accelerate additional image-processing operations. Previously, the team also tried involving AI in planning: in late 2025, they had Anthropic's Claude AI select a driving path for Perseverance based on orbital images, as the starting point for that day's planning (a 400-meter drive), but humans remained in the loop, and the team reviewed and made adjustments.
Report timeline
- NASA's Perseverance rover sets record with 45.22 kilometers driven
NASA's Perseverance rover reached 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles) on its odometer on Sol 2006 (Oct. 11, 2026), setting a record for the farthest distance driven on another celestial body; its engineering twin on Earth received a medal from Guinness World Records.
NASA ·
- Perseverance rover reaches 45.22 km total driving distance; JPL team details its autonomous driving system
On October 11, the Perseverance rover completed a drive that brought its cumulative distance traveled on Mars to 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers), breaking the 45.16-kilometer record held by Opportunity.
IEEE Spectrum Robotics ·