Mars rover Perseverance gets its first test drive

It crept at a speed that Schuylkill Expressway veterans could appreciate — all of 21.3 feet in 33 minutes — but Perseverance has executed its first drive on the surface of Mars, NASA announced Friday.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see wheel tracks in my life,” Anais Zarifian, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Southern California, said at a news briefing. The vehicle also managed to drive in reverse for eight feet.

NASA said the rover’s adventure on Thursday foreshadows regular trips of 650 feet or more, and the plan is for it to gather rock samples that eventually can be analyzed on Earth, all in the pursuit of finding evidence of life and perhaps unlocking some of the secrets of the universe.

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It might have been one slow ride, but this was a giant step for mankind, said Zarifian.

“When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” she said.

In the two weeks since Perseverance touched down, its multiple images included one of layered rock, possibly suggesting the presence of an ancient river, said NASA scientist Katie Stack Morgan.

Eventually the mission’s science team plans to take close-up looks at the geological features of the Jezero Crater, which is believed to have been the site of a lake 3.5 billion years ago, said director Robert Hogg.

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NASA officials said they had not yet determined when they would test the helicopter that had been attached to Perseverance.

Overall, the mission has unfolded as expected, Hogg said.

“We haven’t had any hardware issues,” he said. “Everything has been working. It’s actually been amazingly smooth.”

And Perseverance did not receive a speeding ticket.