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NASA’s Curiosity rover has hit a milestone as its odometer passed one kilometre travelled on the Red Planet.
The drive covered about 38 meters and brought the mission’s odometry to about 1.029 kilometres. It was completed in the early afternoon of the rover’s 335th Martian day, or sol, of work on Mars.
The rover continued progress in a multi-month trek begun this month toward a mountain destination, NASA said.
“When I saw that the drive had gone well and passed the kilometre mark, I was really pleased and proud,” said rover driver Frank Hartman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.
“Hopefully, this is just the first of many kilometres to come,” said Hartman.
Two weeks ago, Curiosity finished investigating science targets in the Glenelg area, about half a kilometre east of where the one-ton rover landed on August 5, last year.
The mission’s next major destination is at the lower layers of Mount Sharp, about 8 kilometres southwest of Glenelg.
Mount Sharp, in the middle of Gale Crater, exposes many layers where scientists anticipate finding evidence about how the ancient Martian environment changed and evolved.
At targets in the Glenelg area, the rover already accomplished the mission’s main science objective by finding evidence for an ancient wet environment that had conditions favourable for microbial life.
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