WASHINGTON: The Mars rover Perseverance has successfully conducted its first test drive on the Red Planet, the US space agency Nasa said.
The six-wheeled rover travelled about 6.5 metres (21.3 feet) in 33 minutes, Nasa said.
It drove four metres forward, turned in place 150 degrees to the left, and then backed up 2.5 metres, leaving tyre tracks in the Martian dust.
“This was our first chance to ‘kick the tyres’ and take Perseverance out for a spin’’, said Anais Zarifian, Perseverance mobility test bed engineer at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Zarifian said the test drive went “incredibly well” and represented a “huge milestone for the mission and the mobility team.” “We’re going to do some longer drives’’, she added. “This is just the beginning.” Nasa engineers said they were studying possible routes for longer rover voyages on the surface of Mars. A slightly longer trip was planned for Friday, and perhaps another Saturday if all goes well, Nasa said.
The rover can cover 200 metres per Martian day, which is slightly longer than a day on Earth.
And it goes five times faster than Curiosity, its predecessor, which is still functioning eight years after landing on Mars. — AFP
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