NASA has shared a fascinating animation showing the route taken by the Perseverance rover on Mars since its arrival there in February 2021.
Perseverance is NASA’s most advanced Mars rover to date, and while its general routes are decided by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the rover actually moves forward autonomously, checking for hazards and moving around any problematic objects as it goes.
The animation covers the entire 18.7 miles (about 30 kilometers) traveled by Perseverance over the last 44 months, and includes the locations where it’s been collecting samples of Mars rock and soil.
Those samples will be returned to Earth in the coming years so that scientists can study them in laboratory conditions to try to determine whether microbial life ever existed on the red planet.
Most of Perseverance’s travels have taken place inside Jezero Crater, a place once filled with water and which scientists believe has the best chance of containing evidence of ancient life.
In recent months, however, Perseverance has embarked on a challenging climb up the side of the crater and is now tackling its steepest inclines to date.
Because much of the material it’s currently driving over comprises loosely packed dust and sand with a thin, brittle crust, Perseverance has recently been slipping a lot and has covered only about 50% of the distance that it would have managed on a more stable surface. On one occasion, it managed only 20% of the planned route.
“Mars rovers have driven over steeper terrain, and they’ve driven over more slippery terrain, but this is the first time one had to handle both, and on this scale,” said JPL’s Camden Miller, who is a rover planner, or “driver,” on the Perseverance mission. “For every two steps forward Perseverance takes, we were taking at least one step back. The rover planners saw this was trending toward a long, hard slog, so we got together to think up some options.”
The team used a replica rover on Earth to test out some new maneuvers aimed at reducing slippage, and also considered alternative routes featuring different terrain. Assessing the data, the planners settled on altering the route, and Perseverance is continuing on its way at a steady pace.
“That’s the plan right now, but we may have to change things up the road,” Miller said. “No Mars rover mission has tried to climb up a mountain this big, this fast. The science team wants to get to the top of the crater rim as soon as possible because of the scientific opportunities up there. It’s up to us rover planners to figure out a way to get them there.”
Those opportunities include access to rocks from the most ancient crust of Mars that were formed from a wealth of different processes. Rocks there have never been analyzed close up before, and they could potentially include once habitable environments.