Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, September 26 (Xinhua)-- NASA's perseverance rover has successfully crossed a dangerous Martian terrain with the help of its automatic navigation system, setting a new record for Mars exploration. This thrilling journey saves scientists a few weeks of valuable time and allows them to do more scientific research.

Although the perseverance mission team usually plans the route of the Mars rover manually, the automatic navigation system called AutoNav has demonstrated its extraordinary ability to guide perseverance safely around rocks that cannot be seen in orbital images.

At the end of June, perseverance entered a boulder-strewn area called Xuefeng from the east, where the rock density was higher than anywhere else encountered before. Perseverance stopped to examine two rocks and then bravely crossed the area under the guidance of AutoNav. Perseverance left Xuefeng at the end of July and traveled a total of 759 meters.

CTOnews.com noticed that the perseverance rover traveled a slightly longer distance than a straight line, which scientists said was because AutoNav was helping perseverance get around rocks that the team could not see.

Since 1997, when Sojourner, NASA's first rover, used silicon-based navigators to avoid dangerous rocks, automatic navigators have protected robot probes from unfamiliar Martian terrain. But the memory is so small that the rover needs to stop and reposition its surroundings every 13 centimeters. With the improvement of the software, each generation of successors who visited Mars has increased this distance.

Now, perseverance doesn't need to stop and decide where to go next, thanks to powerful cameras and computers dedicated to image processing, which work together to help AutoNav plan its route in real time. Perseverance is the first rover with two computer brains to work together and make decisions instantly. These programmed brains also helped perseverance set a previous record on Mars-699.9 meters at Jazelo Crater (Jezero Crater), the longest distance without human scrutiny.

Earlier this month, perseverance began its fourth scientific campaign, exploring the inner area of the western edge of Jazelo crater, which appears to be rich in carbonates. it may reveal more information about ancient microbial life that may have existed on Mars. According to data collected by the orbiter, the area is also full of broken rocks, high slopes and Martian sand dunes.

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