Nasa's Perseverance rover makes history with first-ever AI-planned trip

Nasa's Perseverance rover has made a number of trips and fascinating discoveries, since arriving on Mars nearly five years ago.

However, it made history with a recent trip it took across the surface of the Red Planet.

For the first time the journey was planned by artificial intelligence (AI), and not by human operators, who usually choose the route.

The US space agency said that the robot safely travelled more than 200 metres - so much so - that they again allowed AI to plan a slightly longer drive for the rover a few days later.

Mars is located around 140 million miles away from Earth.

This long distance means that there is a big delay when it comes to communication between the two planets.

As a result, it makes any real-time remote operation - also known as 'joy-sticking' - of a rover impossible.

According to Nasa, for the past 28 years, rover routes have been planned and executed by human "drivers" over several missions.

They take a close look at images and terrain data to sketch a route, identify hazards such as rocks and sand ripples, and choose a safe path across the Martian surface for the rover to take.

However, in December 2025, after first carrying out detailed tests in a virtual replica of the rover, scientists allowed AI to plan the route.

Nasa said that Perseverance successfully followed the journey, driving a distance of 210 metres.

Happy with the results, scientists decided to repeat the experiment, and this time AI planned a slightly longer route for Perseverance, which drove 246 metres.

Experts say that Artificial Intelligence could provide "game-changing technology" when it come to future space missions.

Vandi Verma, a member of the Perseverance engineering team, explained: "We are moving towards a day where generative AI and other smart tools will help our surface rovers handle kilometre-scale drives while minimizing operator workload, and flag interesting surface features for our science team by scouring huge volumes of rover images."

Nasa's Perseverance Rover arrived on Mars in February 2021, after taking nearly seven months to travel the 292 million mile journey from Earth.

The robot landed in a deep crater, called Jezero, near the planet's equator.

Its mission is to study the planet's landscape and look for signs of ancient life, to help Nasa discover more about the past habitability of Mars.

According to the US space agency, the rover is collecting core samples of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) - which Nasa is hoping to pick up in a future mission, and bring back to Earth for detailed study.

Perseverance also has plenty of cameras onboard, which have sent back some pretty incredible pictures over the past five years.