Grok Mars

Rover tracks, helicopter flights, and the science

Whole drives, drawn large enough to see

October 11, 2026

Perseverance’s whole drive is drawn about 27× larger than life, so you can see the shape from space. The kilometers in the story are real.

NASA · Mars 2020

Perseverance

Jezero crater · on Mars since Feb 18, 2021 · still working

Distance driven by this date

45.22 km · 28.10 mi

Off-world driving record. Opportunity’s mark was 45.16 km (28.06 mi).

February 18, 2021. Heat shield, a parachute, then a sky crane, with a new trick: the rover looked at the ground during descent and steered toward a safe patch inside a hazardous delta. Ingenuity, a small helicopter, rode underneath.

45.22 kilometers

The distance record

On October 11, 2026 — sol 2,006 — a drive of about 91 meters pushed the odometer to 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometers). Opportunity’s record had been 28.06 miles (45.16 kilometers), and it took almost 15 years. Perseverance did it in five and a half.

A rover that drives itself can explore faster without being careless. The record is a side effect of going where the science is.

NASA’s record announcement

Discoveries along the way

Ingenuity flights

Gold dots on the Jezero chart are NASA airfields. These seven are the ones worth telling out loud.

What it measured

NASA photo galleries

Follow a track and stop at each discovery, on the day it happened.