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The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success

The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success
Ars Technica Saturday 08 August 2026, 11:30 UTC By Eric Berger 1 min read
Key Points

Sometime next week, NASA's newest rover on Mars, Perseverance, will set a record for the most distance driven by any vehicle on another world. The automobile-sized rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, will traverse beyond 45.16 km (28.06 miles) across the Martian surface. In doing so it will break the previous distance record held by the long-lived Opportunity rover, which ceased communications with NASA in 2018.

Sometime next week, NASA's newest rover on Mars, Perseverance, will set a record for the most distance driven by any vehicle on another world.

The automobile-sized rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, will traverse beyond 45.16 km (28.06 miles) across the Martian surface. In doing so it will break the previous distance record held by the long-lived Opportunity rover, which ceased communications with NASA in 2018.

So how did Perseverance reach this record-setting distance in just a third of the time?

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