Cover image: Tracks recorded by Perseverance's navigation camera on October 11, 2026. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
NASA's Perseverance rover has driven farther on the surface of another world than any vehicle before it. Its odometer reached 45.22 kilometres (28.10 miles) on October 11, 2026, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That passed the 45.16 kilometres (28.06 miles) logged by Opportunity, which explored Mars from 2004 to 2018.
Opportunity took nearly 15 years to set its record. Perseverance reached the new distance about five and a half years after landing on Mars in 2021.
What the record measures
A 91.31-metre drive on October 11, the rover's 2,006th Martian day, pushed Perseverance past Opportunity's mark. A navigation-camera image from that day shows its tracks across the rocky landscape.
The record covers surface travel beyond Earth, not only Mars. NASA says Perseverance had already driven farther than the Apollo 17 lunar rover and the Soviet Lunokhod 2 rover on the Moon.
How the rover navigates
NASA says Perseverance has used AutoNav to evaluate the terrain over more than 90% of its total driving distance. The system takes images while the rover moves, builds a three-dimensional map of hazards, and chooses a path between waypoints selected by mission planners on Earth. The rover does not choose its own scientific destination.
Longer drives matter because they put more varied rocks within reach of the rover's instruments. The distance record is a measure of how much ground this mission can examine, rather than a scientific discovery in itself.
Where it is heading
Perseverance is travelling along the western rim of Jezero Crater toward an area NASA calls Idubi. The mission team hopes to find traces of ancient hydrothermal systems there. That is a research goal, not a finding.
NASA says a mission extension that began in October will carry its exploration of the crater rim through roughly the end of 2028. The 45.22-kilometre figure is its odometer reading as of October 11, not a final mission distance.
