According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the self-driving function of the Perseverance rover is performing admirably on Mars.

The rovers have broken a new distance record for rovers on the Red Planet, with a distance of not quite one Earth year on Mars. Perseverance accomplished the longest drive completed in a single Martian day, or sol, on Friday (Feb. 4), traversing 806.3 feet (245.76 meters), according to the rover's Twitter feed.

According to NASA, the previous record was held by NASA's Opportunity rover, which traveled 702 feet (214 meters) in a single day in 2015.

"After a few months exploring this area, I'm on the move. Thanks to my self-driving function, I can cover more ground in a day than ever before," the tweet read, adding, "Places to go, rocks to see."

For several weeks, the rover had been squatting in place to try to figure out what was wrong with a rock sample it had taken, which had clogged the machine's "throat" with boulders from Mars. Perseverance is undertaking some last-minute scouting before trying a multi-kilometer drive to a neighboring delta, according to recent blog posts.

"The science team has been hard at work preparing for our next phase of science operations, which will take us towards [a] western delta," a Jan. 31 blog post indicated. 

Those locations where water flows could provide a rich habitat for the rover's ultimate purpose of collecting samples that could have been inhabited by ancient bacteria, which would be a good place to start.

"To prepare, the team has been taking long-distance observations of the delta and layers along Artuby ridge with both the Mastcam-Z and SuperCam instruments," the blog post continued, but it suggested there will be a few pit stops first.