NASA’s Perseverance Now Autonomously Pinpoints Its Location on Mars

There is no GPS at the Red Planet, but a new technology called Mars Global Localization lets Perseverance determine precisely where it is — without human help.  Imagine you’re all alone, driving along in a rocky, unforgiving desert with no roads, no map, no GPS, and no more than one phone call a day for someone to inform you exactly where you are. That’s what NASA’s Perseverance rover has been experiencing since landing on Mars five years ago. Though it carries time-tested tools for determining its general location, the rover has needed operators on Earth to tell it precisely where it is — until now.   A new […]