PASADENA, USA, Oct. 11, 2026 - NASA's Perseverance rover has surpassed the Opportunity rover's record for the greatest distance driven on another world. On 11 October it drove 91.31 metres, bringing its cumulative total on Mars to 45.22 km. That beats Opportunity's record of 28.06 miles, about 45.16 km.

The milestone came on Perseverance's 2,006th Martian day, or sol, as the rover headed toward an area called Idubi. Its AutoNav self-driving system has powered 90 percent of the distance it has covered.

Opportunity had held the record since 2018, and before that the Soviet Lunokhod-2 rover held the off-world distance record for more than 40 years. NASA has extended Perseverance's mission through the end of 2028.

Impact Insight. Radio signals between Earth and Mars take several minutes each way, so a rover can't be steered live, and one that picks its own safe path covers far more ground. The link to planetary defense is indirect: the same kind of onboard autonomy helps spacecraft navigate around distant, poorly known bodies such as asteroids.