Perseverance rover takes 1st drive on Mars

It crept at a speed that rush-hour 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 8 feet.

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