Skip to main content

NASA time-lapse shows Mars rover speeding across planet’s surface

A new time-lapse released by NASA shows its Perseverance rover speeding across the surface of Mars.

To be clear, Perseverance doesn’t really move that fast. The rover’s top speed on flat, hard ground is a mere 4.2 centimeters per second, or 152 meters per hour — a little less than 0.1 miles per hour.

Recommended Videos

To create the effect of rapid movement, NASA sped up the time-lapse (below) up by about 200 times, with around 30 seconds between each frame.

The resulting footage offers a clearer idea of how the rover tackles the martian terrain, its onboard sensors and software expertly steering the autonomous vehicle around rocky patches on the planet’s surface.

Solar conjunction is over and I’m ready to get rolling again. Nothing like the feel of Mars under your wheels.

Latest images: https://t.co/Ex1QDo3eC2
🎥(Sol 200 drive): https://t.co/JnELQV2rOy pic.twitter.com/D3vZSD99qT

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) October 19, 2021

NASA posted the video to mark the resumption of operations on Mars after the space agency cut contact with Perseverance and its other Mars-based machines at the start of this month.

The planned downtime was prompted by a phenomenon known as solar conjunction when the orbits of Earth and Mars place the two planets on opposite sides of the sun. A situation like this can disrupt commands sent by NASA to its Mars-based kit, and so engineers overseeing the mission down tools until normal communications can resume.

AutoNav

The time-lapse shows the six-wheeled Perseverance rover using its auto-navigation technology — also known as AutoNav — to drive a distance of 548 feet (167 meters).

“AutoNav allows the rover to autonomously re-plan its route around rocks or other obstacles on its way to a pre-established destination,” NASA explained in a post on its website.

The first few meters of a Perseverance driving expedition are based on commands sent by NASA’s rover operators. This allows Perseverance to build a 3D map of the terrain under and around it, which then allows the rover’s AutoNav function to evaluate the safety of available routes as it heads toward its destination.

“Once AutoNav takes over, the rover autonomously chooses a path to reach the intended destination, continually imaging around itself to maintain a 98-foot-by-98-foot (30-meter-by-30-meter) map centered on the rover,” NASA said.

Perseverance is NASA’s most advanced Mars rover to date and is packed with science tools that include a plethora of cameras for a range of tasks.

The rover arrived on Mars in spectacular fashion in February after a six-month journey from Earth. One of the mission’s main goals is to search for evidence of ancient life on the distant planet. For that purpose, Perseverance is exploring different parts of Jezero Crater, a dried-up lake bed that scientists believe could be home to such evidence.

Recent tasks undertaken by Perseverance have included drilling and collecting rock samples for return to Earth where scientists will be able to carry out more advanced analysis using specialist equipment.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Curiosity rover finds tantalizing hints that Mars could once have been habitable
This graphic shows the long-chain organic molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane. These are the largest organic molecules discovered on Mars to date.

Despite its freezing temperatures, thin atmosphere, and lack of surface water today, scientists believe that Mars could once have been capable of supporting life. No one knows whether life ever did develop there (though there is almost certainly nothing alive there now), but finding out if our neighboring planet ever did host microbial life is one of the great questions in astronomy today. Now, scientists are one step closer to answering that question.

The NASA Curiosity rover has discovered the largest organic compounds ever found on Mars, suggesting that the conditions for life to develop could have been present on the planet billions of years ago. Organic compounds aren't necessarily indicators of life, but they are its building blocks, so finding these compounds in such a large and well-developed state supports the idea that it may have been possible for life to develop there.

Read more
Cool time-lapse shows SpaceX Crew-10 arriving at space station
SpaceX's Crew-10 arriving at the ISS in March 2025.

Space station astronaut Don Pettit has shared a cool time-lapse of SpaceX’s Crew-10 Crew Dragon spacecraft arriving at the orbital facility on Sunday.

The footage, which runs more quickly than the actual speed, shows the capsule approaching the docking port on the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits at around 250 miles above Earth. Pettit posted a short and long version of the spacecraft's autonomous approach:

Read more
NASA’s Mars rover collects rock sample ‘unlike anything we’ve seen before’
Perseverance's 26th rock sample collected from the Martian surface.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of its 26th collected rock sample, named “Silver Mountain,” using its onboard Sample Caching System Camera, located inside the rover's underbelly. The camera looks directly down into the top of a sample tube to take close-up pictures of the sampled material and the tube ahead of sealing and storage. NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA is getting excited about a special rock that its Perseverance rover has just scooped up from the surface of Mars.

Read more