Slow and regular is profitable the race. NASA’s Perseverance Rover has damaged the report for the longest distance pushed by a rover on the Red Planet, according to a release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. Currently en path to its last vacation spot of the Jezero Crater river delta—a 3-mile journey from its touchdown website—the rover traveled 1,047 ft in at some point. Even extra spectacular, it did so with minimal assist from people.

Rover drivers on Earth at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California are driving the rover utilizing particular 3D glasses and 3D photographs to view the encompassing terrain extra precisely. This permits the staff to pick out completely different vacation spot factors alongside the route for Perseverance, however the path the rover takes to get to these factors is determined by its onboard self-driving system. Along the way in which, Perseverance must establish hazards like jagged rocks, free sand, and craters, and work out how greatest to keep away from them in real-time, with out assist from Earthlings.

While earlier rovers additionally had self-driving software program, Perseverance’s benefit is that it could make choices whereas its wheels are nonetheless transferring. Older fashions, like the Curiosity Rover, needed to cease each time they needed to decide, leading to them overlaying a lot smaller each day distances. The scientists on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have dubbed this the “thinking while driving capability.”

Perseverance’s prime velocity is a whopping 0.1 miles per hour, and it could cowl upwards of 300 yards per day, in keeping with NASA. Perseverance is presently heading to the Jezero River Basin, a bone-dry area that NASA believes as soon as featured speeding waters. Along the way in which will probably be looking for proof of previous microbial life in addition to accumulating soil and rock samples that future Mars missions will retrieve for additional evaluation. Since Perseverance can journey extra shortly than different probes, it’ll additionally permit scientists extra alternative to conduct experiments and acquire samples.