How to drive a robot vehicle on Mars

[Still Waters]

Some 78 million miles (126 million kilometers) from Earth, alone on the immense and frigid Red Planet, a robot the size of a small 4x4 wakes up just after sunrise. And just as it has every day for the past six years, it awaits its instructions.

Around 9:30 Mars time, a message arrives from California, where it was sent 15 minutes earlier.

"Drive forward 10 meters, turn to an azimuth of 45 degrees, now turn on your autonomous capabilities and drive."

The Curiosity rover executes the commands, moving slowly to its designated position, at a maximum speed of 35 to 110 meters (yards) per hour.

Its batteries and other configurations limit its daily drive span to around 100 meters. The most Curiosity has rolled on Mars in a day is 220 meters.

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-robot-mars.html