NASA’s Perseverance rover takes its first drive on the surface of Mars

NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has taken its first short drive on the surface of the Red Planet, two weeks after the robot science lab’s picture-perfect touchdown on the floor of a massive crater, mission managers said.

The six-wheeled, car-sized astrobiology probe put a total of 6.5 metres on its odometer during a half-hour test spin within Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient, long-vanished lakebed and river delta on Mars.

Taking directions from mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near…