The Perseverance Rover by NASA travelled a record of 245.76m in a single Martian day. The previous record was held by Opportunity for travelling the longest drive on the surface of Mars which travelled around 214 m in 2015.
Setting a record on the Martian surface, the Perseverance Rover by NASA covers more ground in a single day than ever before. It is all due to the self-driving function installed in the rover. Perseverance was launched on July 30, 2020, from Earth and it landed on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021. It has recently covered a record of 245.76m in one day on the planet which is a little longer than one day on Earth. The Perseverance rover and its assisting helicopter were launched to find signs of life on Mars.
As per the official Twitter handle of the Rover, it mentioned that the rover was moving after a few months of exploring the area on the surface of the red planet. The Tweet further said that the rover is now capable of covering more distance in a single Martian day than ever before because of the self-driving function of the machine. There was an image attached to the tweet that showed Perseverance’s tracks on the surface of Mars.
As per the latest reports by NASA, the previous record for the longest drive on the Red Planet was held by the Opportunity Rover of NASA, which covered the ground of 214 m in a single day of Mars back in 2015.
The Perseverance Rover is at present roaming around the Martian surface collecting Rock Samples to be sent to Earth through the future human missions to the planet. In an attempt to transfer the sample to its storage, the rover had choked its systems in December last year. It took almost a week of complex operations performed by the engineers to get it back to proper functioning.
The rover will now attempt a multi-kilometre drive to a nearby delta on Mars. Deltas are the areas where water once used to flow. They are expected to hold information that could aid the scientific community to study whether there was ancient microbial life ever-present on Mars long ago. But before beginning the journey, Perseverance was busy scouting the area to ensure it has not left anything to chance.
