The Longest Drive

Mars, January 2004 – 11 October 2026

On 11 October 2026, sol 2,006 of its mission, a 91-metre drive took NASA's Perseverance rover to 45.22 km on Mars, past the 45.16 km that Opportunity covered before it fell silent in June 2018. No vehicle has driven farther on another world. Opportunity needed nearly fifteen years, most of them crossing the flat plains of Meridiani. Perseverance took five and a half, inside one crater, and finished 632 m higher than it landed, over the crater's western rim. It mostly drives itself: more than 90% of its distance on autonomous navigation, against about 5% for Opportunity.

What happened

Distance drivenkilometres, by Earth years after landing

Perseverance reached 45.22 km in five and a half years; Opportunity's 45.16 km took nearly fifteen.

“The original mission called for no more than 12.4 miles of driving. We've blown well past that.”Steven Lee, Perseverance project manager, JPL, 12 October 2026

Print map (PDF) Full-resolution image

Sources. Perseverance drives and odometry: NASA JPL Mars 2020 mission maps (MMGIS), through sol 2,006. Opportunity: corrected traverse by T. Parker, PDS Geosciences Node MER Analyst's Notebook (positions interpolated between team fixes; sums to 45.10 km against NASA's odometer 45.16 km). Terrain: CTX DEM of Jezero, 20 m (NASA JPL / USGS Astrogeology); HRSC–MOLA blended DEM, 200 m (USGS Astrogeology, ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, NASA). Record, dates and quote: NASA JPL, 12 October 2026, and the NASA releases linked in the notes. Elevation in metres relative to the Mars datum; bands smoothed, contours every 50 m. Dates under the pointer are Earth dates from each landing. Figures provisional. Mercator on the Mars 2000 sphere (R 3,396.19 km); the printed map is Albers equal-area conic.