NASA’s new rover prototype drove 16 miles in a week, 10 times faster than anything it has on Mars
TL;DR
NASA’s ERNEST rover prototype drove 16 miles in 37 hours during desert testing, hitting 0.6mph. That is 10x faster than Perseverance or Curiosity on Mars.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has built a rover prototype that covered 16 miles in 37 hours of driving, making it roughly 10 times faster than any rover the agency currently operates on Mars. The four-wheeled machine, called ERNEST, reached speeds of up to 0.6mph during a field test in California’s Colorado Desert in March 2026. That pace would be unremarkable for a human on foot, but for a planetary rover it represents a fundamental shift in what robotic exploration could look like.
ERNEST stands for Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain. The prototype is 4 feet long and runs on mesh wheels, a departure from the rigid aluminium wheels that have caused problems on Mars. Its defining feature is an active suspension system...
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