The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success

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https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/the-first-self-driving-vehicle-on-mars-has-proven-to-be-a-smashing-success/

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The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success
About 90 percent of the distance driven by Perseverance has been autonomous.

Eric Berger – Aug 8, 2026 4:30 AM |  237

One of the navigation cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover captured 
this image of the tracks made by the rover during its climb up the rim 
of Jezero Crater on Oct. 11, 2024. Credit: NASA

Sometime next week, NASA’s newest rover on Mars, Perseverance, will set 
a record for the most distance driven by any vehicle on another world.

The automobile-sized rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021, will 
traverse beyond 45.16 km (28.06 miles) across the Martian surface. In 
doing so it will break the previous distance record held by the 
long-lived Opportunity rover, which ceased communications with NASA in 2018.

So how did Perseverance reach this record-setting distance in just a 
third of the time?

A rover that drives itself
“The real enabling technology has been its auto navigation system,” said 
Steven Lee, the project manager for the Perseverance rover at NASA’s Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview.

Much like self-driving cars on Earth, Perseverance has sophisticated 
onboard cameras that image the surrounding terrain, and these images are 
then processed algorithmically by an onboard computer to calculate the 
safest route. Terrestrial vehicles have some advantages of course, like 
clearly defined maps, street signs, lanes, and more. Additionally there 
are plenty of “road” hazards on Mars, from large boulders to sandy 
slopes. But at least Perseverance does not have to contend with other 
traffic and bad drivers.

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The Curiosity rover, largely a twin of Perseverance that launched nine 
years earlier, had similar imaging capability and algorithms. But its 
onboard computer was a generation older, and some of its chipset dated 
back to the 1990s, Lee said. As a result, only about 10 percent of 
Curiosity’s driving is autonomous because its processing capabilities 
are too slow. In its decade and a half on Mars, Curiosity has driven 
38.6 km.

By contrast, about 90 percent of the distance driven by Perseverance has 
been autonomous thanks to its (slightly) more modern Vision Compute 
Element. This allows the vehicle to perform all of its sensing and 
computation while its wheels are turning. Not that the vehicle is going 
super fast, as Perseverance’s maximum wheel speed is about 150 meters 
per hour.

Still, because Perseverance has not had to spend much time stopped to 
wait for navigation commands from drivers on Earth, the vehicle has been 
able to maximize the amount of scientific return.

A science superstar
“It is very enabling for the science,” said Vivian Sun, the mission’s 
deputy project scientist. “Not to sell the rover’s other advanced 
capabilities short, but the driving in particular has allowed us to have 
a larger scope than previous missions.”

Perseverance’s self-driving ability has nicely complemented its mission. 
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater and has slowly been making its way up 
Mount Sharp. It moves less and spends more time systematically taking 
detailed measurements as it gains altitude. Perseverance, however, 
landed in Jezero Crater, where its science objectives are more spread 
out. It has been able to cruise from one location to another, often 
surprising scientists by turning up at a new site ahead of the planned 
timeline.

And that’s good, because there is a lot of work to do. In Jezero Crater, 
the rover is studying some of the most ancient rocks in the Solar 
System, older than any on Earth, dating as far back as about 4 billion 
years ago. At the time, the planet was in the later stages of the “heavy 
bombardment” era when rocks were still whizzing around the inner planets 
in great numbers. But things were starting to settle down.

“It’s the first time we’ve been able to investigate this terrain in 
situ, and that’s been very exciting,” Sun said.

During this era, large lakes and possibly even oceans are thought to 
have existed on Mars. Perseverance is exploring this ancient terrain to 
better understand what geological and environmental conditions might 
have existed at the time, and just how conducive the planet might have 
been to life. Scientists believe the planet might have looked something 
like the Mojave Desert on Earth, with water flowing through it, but the 
debate rages on. With Perseverance, there is a lot of data to base it upon.

Driving on, and on, and on
Curiosity is still going strong on Mars after nearly 15 years, and 
Perseverance operators say the newer rover is doing great as well. After 
a few years on Mars, Curiosity operators noted significant wear and tear 
on the vehicle’s wheels. So for Perseverance, the wheels were 
redesigned, and there are no signs of appreciable wear and tear, Lee said.

The only minor concern at this point is the actuators in the wheels. 
They were initially life-tested for 20 km of driving, but NASA is in the 
midst of certifying them to at least 100 km, and possibly longer. 
Perseverance operates on RTG power and has no propellants, consumables, 
or lubricants on board.

For this reason, Lee said, the vehicle could keep driving itself across 
Mars for many years to come.

Photo of Eric Berger
Eric Berger Senior Space Editor
Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering 
everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of 
two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the 
development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified 
meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.