NASA’s Perseverance Rover completes 1st AI-planned drive on Mars

The six-wheeled Perseverance rover has completed the first drives on Mars that were planned by artificial intelligence (AI), NASA said.

Conducted on December 8 and 10, 2025, the demonstration used generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance. The complex decision-making task is typically performed manually by the mission’s human rover planners at the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“This demonstration shows how far our capabilities have advanced and broadens how we will explore other worlds,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.

“Autonomous technologies like this can help missions to operate more efficiently, respond to challenging terrain, and increase science return as distance from Earth grows. It’s a strong example of teams applying new technology carefully and responsibly in real operations,” he added.

The rover -- about the size of a car and carrying seven scientific instruments -- has been exploring Mars, studying its geology and atmosphere, as well as collecting samples since 2021. During the demonstration, the team leveraged a type of generative AI called vision-language models to analyse existing data from the surface mission dataset.