Kris Ankarlo (KFI), Bill Galluccio; City News Service, 3/5/21; Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly
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| The roads are ready. Let's start moving, Elon. |
PASADENA, California - After two weeks of residency on the Red Planet, the Mars rover Perseverance has taken its first drive.
It moved about 21 feet in what proved to be a successful test of the rover's mobility, mission managers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena announced today.
“Our first drive went incredibly well,'' said Anais Zarifian, a mobility test bed engineer on the rover mission.
As she showed a photo taken by the rover after moving, Zarifian said, “You can see the wheel tracks we've left on Mars. I don't think I've ever been happier to see wheel tracks, and I've seen a lot of them.
“This is just a huge milestone for the mission and the mobility team. We've driven on Earth, but driving on Mars is really the ultimate goal.... So many people, I can't even count, have worked toward this very moment for years.''
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| Tire tracks on the iron-rich red soil of Mars with this rinky-dink Rover Perseverance |
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| Mars video-audio (Bill Galluccio/iheart.com) |
“It went really well. In certain cases better than we expected,'' she said. “We saw some performance that in some cases was better than we saw on Earth.... It worked beautifully, and we were so excited to move on to the first drive.''
During the drive the rover -- at a blazing speed of 0.01 MPH -- moved about 13 feet (four meters) forward. It then made a 150-degree turn, then moved backward about 8 feet (2.5 meters). The whole process took 33 minutes. More
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