After nearly five years on Mars, NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers), and the mission team has been busy testing the rover\u2019s durability and gathering new science findings on the way to a new region nicknamed \u201cLac de Charmes,\u201d where it will be searching for rocks to sample in the coming year.<\/p>\n
Like its predecessor Curiosity<\/a>, which has been exploring a different region of Mars since 2012, Perseverance<\/a> was made for the long haul. NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Perseverance and leads the mission, has continued testing the rover\u2019s parts here on Earth to make sure the six-wheeled scientist will be strong for years to come. This past summer, JPL certified that the rotary actuators that turn the rover\u2019s wheels can perform optimally for at least another 37 miles (60 kilometers); comparable brake testing is underway as well.<\/p>\n Over the past two years, engineers have extensively evaluated nearly all the vehicle\u2019s subsystems in this way, concluding that they can operate until at least 2031.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Perseverance used its navigation cameras to capture its record-breaking drive of 1,350.7 feet (411.7 meters) on June 19, 2025. The navcam images were combined with rover data and placed into a 3D virtual environment, resulting in this reconstruction with virtual frames inserted about every 4 inches (0.1 meters) of drive progress. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/p>\n \u201cThese tests show the rover is in excellent shape,\u201d said Perseverance\u2019s deputy project manager, Steve Lee of JPL, who presented the results on Wednesday at the American Geophysical Union\u2019s annual meeting, the largest gathering of planetary scientists in the United States. \u201cAll the systems are fully capable of supporting a very long-term mission to extensively explore this fascinating region of Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n Perseverance has been driving through Mars\u2019 Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake and river system, where it has been collecting scientifically compelling rock core samples. In fact, in September, the team announced that a sample from a rock nicknamed \u201cCheyava Falls\u201d contains a potential fingerprint of past microbial life<\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition to a hefty suite of six science instruments<\/a>, Perseverance packs more autonomous capabilities than past rovers. A paper<\/a> published recently in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics highlights an autonomous planning tool called Enhanced Autonomous Navigation, or ENav. The software looks up to 50 feet (15 meters) ahead for potential hazards, then chooses a path without obstacles and tells Perseverance\u2019s wheels how to steer there.<\/p>\n Engineers at JPL meticulously plan each day of the rover\u2019s activities on Mars. But once the rover starts driving, it\u2019s on its own and sometimes has to react to unexpected obstacles in the terrain. Past rovers could do this to some degree, but not if these obstacles were clustered near each other. They also couldn\u2019t react as far in advance, resulting in the vehicles driving slower while approaching sand pits, rocks, and ledges. In contrast, ENav\u2019s algorithm evaluates each rover wheel independently against the elevation of terrain, trade-offs between different routes, and \u201ckeep-in\u201d or \u201ckeep-out\u201d areas marked by human operators for the path ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cMore than 90% of Perseverance\u2019s journey has relied on autonomous driving, making it possible to quickly collect a diverse range of samples,\u201d said JPL autonomy researcher Hiro Ono, a paper lead author. \u201cAs humans go to the Moon and even Mars in the future, long-range autonomous driving will become more critical to exploring these worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n A paper<\/a> published Wednesday in Science details what Perseverance discovered in the \u201cMargin Unit,\u201d a geologic area at the margin, or inner edge, of Jezero Crater. The rover collected three samples from that region. Scientists think these samples may be particularly useful for showing how ancient rocks from Mars\u2019 deep interior interacted with water and the atmosphere, helping create conditions supportive for life.<\/p>\n From September 2023 to November 2024, Perseverance ascended 1,312 feet (400 meters) of the Margin Unit, studying rocks along the way \u2014 especially those containing the mineral olivine. Scientists use minerals as timekeepers because crystals within them can record details about the precise moment and conditions in which they formed.<\/p>\n Jezero Crater and the surrounding area holds large reserves of olivine, which forms at high temperatures, typically deep within a planet, and offers a snapshot of what was going on in the planet\u2019s interior. Scientists think the Margin Unit\u2019s olivine was made in an intrusion, a process where magma pushes into underground layers and cools into igneous rock. In this case, erosion later exposed that rock to the surface, where it could interact with water from the crater\u2019s ancient lake and carbon dioxide, which was abundant in the planet\u2019s early atmosphere.<\/p>\n Those interactions form new minerals called carbonates, which can preserve signs of past life, along with clues as to how Mars\u2019 atmosphere changed over time.<\/p>\n \u201cThis combination of olivine and carbonate was a major factor in the choice to land at Jezero Crater,\u201d said the new paper\u2019s lead author, Perseverance science team member Ken Williford of Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Seattle. \u201cThese minerals are powerful recorders of planetary evolution and the potential for life.\u201d<\/p>\n Together, the olivine and carbonates record the interplay between rock, water, and atmosphere inside the crater, including how each changed over time. The Margin Unit\u2019s olivine appeared to have been altered by water at the base of the unit, where it would have been submerged. But the higher Perseverance went, the more the olivine bore textures associated with magma chambers, like crystallization, and fewer signs of water alteration.<\/p>\n As Perseverance leaves the Margin Unit behind for Lac de Charmes, the team will have the chance to collect new olivine-rich samples and compare the differences between the two areas.<\/p>\n Managed for NASA by Caltech, NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover on behalf of the agency\u2019s Science Mission Directorate as part of NASA\u2019s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.<\/p>\n To learn more about Perseverance, visit:<\/p>\n https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/mars-2020-perseverance<\/a><\/p>\n News Media Contacts<\/p>\n Andrew Good \/ DC Agle Karen Fox \/ Molly Wasser 2025-143<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly five years on Mars, NASA\u2019s Perseverance rover has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers), and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,20058,2725,41724,41725,128,285,2570],"class_list":{"0":"post-355122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","11":"tag-mars","12":"tag-mars-2020","13":"tag-perseverance-rover","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-the-solar-system"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433 \/ 818-393-9011
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov<\/a> \/ agle@jpl.nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n
NASA Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 \/ 240-419-1732
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov<\/a>\u00a0\/ molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n