The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Perseverance rover has successfully completed its first trip powered by artificial intelligence (AI) on another planet.
Perseverance used an artificial intelligence model, Claude, developed by Anthropic, to design a safe 400-meter route through the rocky terrain of Jezero Carter. The plan was executed on December 8 and 10, 2025.
Previously, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) performed this manually.
Because Mars is, on average, 140 million miles from Earth, it creates a communication delay of about 20 minutes, preventing it from driving the rovers in real time.
Instead, operators meticulously plan a series of waypoints also known as a “breadcrumb trail” with the help of orbital images and data from the rover, which the rover then autonomously follows between points.
For this test, engineers gave Claude years of mission data in context.
The artificial intelligence system analyzed high-resolution orbital images, detected hazards such as rock fields and sand ripples, and produced a continuous path.
It even produced the commands in the rover’s specialized programming language.
Before application, JPL engineers verified it using a standard verification simulation, checking more than 500,000 variables.
A small adjustment was necessary after testing. As a result, Perseverance drove 689 feet and then 807 feet on the two sols (Marian days), completing the route planned by the AI without problems.
