Driving On Mars: How Fast Is NASA's Perseverance Rover?

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Traveling less than one mile per hour might not seem fast, but on Mars, those speeds are more than enough for the Perseverance rover to break all records. NASA recently celebrated Perseverance's first year on the Red Planet and the rover is now moving on to more promising terrain, the river delta, which involves a long and dangerous journey.

Perseverance, alongside its faithful flying companion, the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, is moving across the Jezero Crater to get to the destination of its next assignment. NASA scientists believe that the river delta is the best place for Perseverance to fulfill its mission of finding signs of life on Mars. Perseverance is not just driving there, it is speed racing.

Related: NASA’s Mission To Mars Turns Focus To Living Quarters

In a new video, a NASA JPL rover driver explained that Perseverance is “thinking while driving” and can hit a top speed of 0.1 miles per hour. This speed allows the rover to cover 300 yards per day while staying safe on the tough Mars terrain. While Perseverance is not the first rover to be equipped with self-driving software, it is by far the most advanced. Curiosity, for example, had to stop, analyze the road using captured images, and then choose the safest path. Perseverance can do all this while driving, making it the fastest rover to ever journey on Mars.

Perseverance is on a three-mile sprint to reach the Martian river delta. JPL rover drivers who used to keep Perseverance on a tight leash are now setting it free. Previously, every turn was managed by the drivers, but it is Perseverance that's now doing all the driving. Just like self-driving software on Earth, Perseverance uses its left and right cameras to create a map, which it then uses to identify