The Perseverance Rover’s Autonomous Driving Has Gone Fantastically Well

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is just days away from breaking the autonomous driving record, having traveled some 28 miles almost entirely autonomously, Ars Technica reports. With onboard navigation systems, it’s been able to travel 90% of its Martian journey without the need for human input, helping it travel further, faster.

Similar in design to the Curiosity rover that launched a near-decade before it, Perseverance’s onboard computing system is much faster and more capable, thanks to the use of a commercial phone processor to communicate with the Ingenuity copter. That has allowed it to plan its route as it’s in motion, meaning it can cover up to 150 meters an hour without the need for extensive (or even any) human input. Curiosity, by comparison, has only spend about 10% of its time driving autonomously, meaning in over 15 years it’s only traversed about 24 miles.

Perseverance has traveled 28 miles in a mere five years.

This autonomy has been hailed as the real game changer for Perseverance, even beyond some of its more advanced scientific equipment. It’s helped the rover make its way to various points of interest in the Jezero crater that are spaced further apart than those of the Gale Crater where Curiosity landed.

Perseverance has been so successful that it’s apparently made its way to new scientific interest locations ahead of schedule, surprising the teams managing it.

Another advantage of the newer rover design is its refined wheels. Where Curiosity’s are showing considerable wear after its many years and miles, Perseverance’s are designed a little differently. Having learned from Curiosity’s design and its real-life use on Mars, the engineers developed tougher wheels that have so far withstood much of what the Red Planet has thrown at them.

Where Perseverance isn’t quite perfect, however, are the actuators within the wheels themselves. They were originally designed for up to 12 miles of driving distance, though they are apparently being certified at this time for up to 62 miles, so it may be that they’ll go for longer than their original design constraints allow.

If that proves to be the case, with no lubricants, fuel, or propellants that can run out, there’s little reason to think that Perseverance can’t continue on its many missions for many years to come. Its radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) has a half-life just shy of 90 years, though its operating lifespan is considered to be 14 years due to the potential for breakdown of supporting systems.

That potentially gives Perseverance many more years of operation. Indeed, Curiosity is fitted with the same system, so if it’s still doing its thing after 15 years, Perseverance has a long, useful life ahead of it. Maybe it will even still be in operation when human boots first touch down nearby.