NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring the surface of Mars since it landed there in spectacular fashion nearly five years ago.
In that time, NASA’s most advanced rover to date, which is about the size of a small car, has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers) while all the time conducting science research and collecting soil samples for return to Earth.
In a new video (top) released on Wednesday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which overseas the space agency’s Mars missions, has shared footage captured by Perseverance’s two navigation cameras (navcams) as it completed a drive of 1,350.7 feet (411.7 meters) in 4 hours and 24 minutes on June 19, 2025 — a new record for distance covered in a single sol (a Mars sol is a martian solar day and lasts about 24 hours and 39 minutes).
The video was created by stitching together 300 image pairs from the rover’s navcams, with one pair of captures occurring every 16 feet (5 meters) for the first third of the journey, and then one every 3.3 feet (1 meter) for the rest of it. Virtual frames were inserted about every 4 inches (0.1 meters).
As the rover has a top speed of just under 0.1 mph, the final piece has been sped up to create something that has the feel of a drone flying just above the ground.
The rover tracks that appear in the video are from Perseverance’s two previous southbound drives that took place in May 2025.
The 1,350.7-feet (411.7-meter) drive beats the previous single-sol drive record of 718.5 feet (219 meters) set by NASA’s Opportunity rover way back in 2005.
The footage is a testament to the rover’s ongoing ability to deal with the harsh martian conditions that include rough terrain and freezing temperatures.
Interestingly, JPL has continued testing the rover’s various parts on Earth to confirm their longevity and to learn more about how long they’re likely to last, with the team confident that Perseverance will be able to keep on rolling until at least 2031, barring any major mishaps, of course.
“These tests show the rover is in excellent shape,” JPL’s Steve Lee, Perseverance’s deputy project manager, said on NASA’s website. “All the systems are fully capable of supporting a very long-term mission to extensively explore this fascinating region of Mars.”
