NASA’s Perserverance Rover breaks record

By Alaina Hershey

On Oct. 11, the fifth and most recent of NASA’s Mars rovers, Perseverance, broke the record for the number of miles driven by a vehicle on the surface of another planet.

The previous record was held by NASA’s Opportunity Rover, recording 28.06 miles over the course of its nearly 15-year lifespan. Perseverance recorded 28.10 miles on the 2,006th day of its mission, breaking Opportunity’s record in just over a third of the time.

Perseverance launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on July 30, 2020, landing in Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18 of the following year. In its five and a half years of operation, it has traversed an ancient river delta in the Jezero Crater, where liquid water was once present on the surface of Mars. Its primary mission is to analyze rock samples in search of evidence of ancient microbial life from those waters.

Perseverance’s record-breaking feats are made possible by its advanced processing power. Unlike previous rovers, Perseverance seamlessly constructs a 3D map of the surrounding terrain as it drives. Sojourner, NASA’s first Martian rover, which operated from 1997–1998, had to stop and reevaluate its surroundings every 5.1 inches. NASA’s next set of rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, had to stop every 1.6 feet.

With the help of its automated navigation system (AutoNav), Perseverance rapidly analyzes data from its onboard cameras to calculate its next move without needing to stop at all. The strength of Perseverance’s AutoNav system comes from its onboard cameras. Perseverance uses nine engineering cameras to safely and swiftly navigate its terrain: two primary navigation cameras, six hazard avoidance cameras, and Mastcam-Z, which provides panoramic shots and high-definition video.

Along with these cameras, Perseverance pinpoints its location using a system called Mars Global Localization (MGL). Essentially, this system functions as Martian GPS, allowing Perseverance to compare panoramic images from its onboard cameras with orbital maps. With the help of MGL, Perseverance can determine its position with up to 10 inches of accuracy, allowing the rover to complete drives and move on to its next task without needing to wait for direct human assistance.

These technological advancements have allowed Perseverance to spend less time navigating Mars’ terrain and more time focusing on its primary mission — searching for strong evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. While definitive proof for or against Martian life has not yet been uncovered, Perseverance has made several discoveries that suggest microbes did once reside on the planet.

Last year, Perseverance made one of its most impactful discoveries — a potential biosignature that could be evidence of ancient life on Mars. Found in the sedimentary rock Cheyava Falls, the sample known as Sapphire Canyon contains clay and silt, two materials that have the correct ingredients for microbial life. While the presence of organic compounds indicates the possibility of ancient life, it does not confirm that such life existed on Mars, as these compounds can synthesize abiotically under the correct temperature and acidity conditions.

Because of the difficulty of determining if a sample is or isn’t proof of life, astrobiologists at NASA use a framework known as the Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) scale to represent the strength of their evidence for life. This scale includes seven benchmarks that range from detection of simple biological signals to confirmation of biology. So far, NASA’s rovers, including Perseverance, have collected samples that align with the early levels of this scale.

NASA anticipates that Perseverance will continue to roam the surface of Mars and collect samples until at least 2031, with the hope that it will remain operational well into the 2030s.