Perseverance is hitting the ‘open road’ on Mars like no other rover.
On June 19, the six-wheeled explorer officially completed the longest day trip of any robot vehicle on another planet.
In a single drive, the rover rolled over 411 meters of Mars’ rocky surface (more than a quarter mile).
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That may not sound like much, but compared to Curiosity and Opportunity, which inch along at a relative snail’s pace, Percy is a speed demon.
That’s because Perseverance has self-driving software, which can process and analyze images even while its wheels are turning.
By contrast, Curiosity and Opportunity need to stop, take images, and then process that information before deciding on a good path forward.
The ability to drive longer distances in a day opens up new possibilities for scientific studies on Mars.
Since Percy landed on the red planet in 2021, and completed its first hesitant test drive – a flawless 6.5-meter up-and-back – the rover has come far.
Its travels include an epic climb up a crater and the longest drive of any vehicle without human review on another planet – 700 meters of pure, ‘wind-in-the-hair’ freedom.
The reason for its recent long road trip has to do with the rocks that Percy is on a mission to collect.
For the past month and a half, the rover has searched for clay-bearing rocks on the Krokodillen plateau, which lies on the outer slopes of the Jezero crater rim.
If samples here are found to contain minerals known as ‘phyllosilicates’, it could mean abundant water may have existed here in the distant past. Phyllosilicates can also preserve remnants of organic materials from billions of years ago.
“If we find a potential biosignature here, it would most likely be from an entirely different and much earlier epoch of Mars evolution than the one we found last year in the crater with ‘Cheyava Falls’,” said Ken Farley, deputy project scientist for Perseverance, in May.
“The Krokodillen rocks formed before Jezero Crater was created, during Mars’ earliest geologic period, the Noachian, and are among the oldest rocks on Mars.”
On some parts of the plateau, however, Perseverance has found clay-bearing rocks that break easily when handled.
Picking out a solid sample is crucial. Only the best evidence will do.
“There are seven empty sample tubes remaining and a lot of open road in front of us,” said Perseverance acting project scientist Katie Stack Morgan in May.
In late June, the NASA team that drives Percy decided to turn the rover around, driving it back to a spot previously sampled, which contains the strongest clay signature of the bunch.
Hence the long drive.
Of all the rovers to roam other planets, the Opportunity rover, which has been on Mars since 2004, has racked up the most overall kilometers of driving, more than 40 km.
But Opportunity can’t move with the same finesse as Perseverance, and neither can Curiosity.
At this rate, it won’t be long until Perseverance takes the lead. Its current total distance sits at nearly 36 km.