Interesting Space

Perseverance drives farthest of any rover on another planet, on Mars

On October 11, the odometer of NASA's Perseverance rover reached 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles). With that, it surpassed the previous record of 45.16 kilometers set by the Opportunity rover. Opportunity explored Mars from 2004 to 2018, while Perseverance covered the same distance in five and a half years. The record was set on the rover's 2,006th Martian day, as it drove to a site called "Idubi" through the Lac de Charmes area, beyond the western edge of Jezero Crater. For more than 90 percent of the drive, the route was evaluated by the autonomous AutoNav system, which now analyzes about 600,000 points each time. The Sojourner rover evaluated only 20 points for the same purpose.

Not covered in Armenian media (checked 22 October)