NASA JPL tested the Claude model from Anthropic in planning routes for the Perseverance rover on Mars
In December 2025, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory used the Claude model from Anthropic to help plan two drives of the Perseverance rover on Mars. The route was reviewed and adjusted by human operators before being uploaded to the rover.
In December 2025, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used generative AI models from Claude by Anthropic to help plan two drives of the Perseverance rover across the surface of Mars. The proposed routes were reviewed and, where necessary, adjusted by human operators before being sent to the rover, so the AI served as a supporting tool in the planning process rather than as an independently deciding system.
The experiment fits into a broader shift in space engineering. Space systems have traditionally been designed as purely deterministic, since engineers preferred predictable machine behavior. According to the sources, testing generative AI is intended to show whether such non-deterministic systems can give space vehicles greater flexibility in interpreting their surroundings and planning tasks in real time, without having to wait for instructions from Earth millions of kilometers away.
Further technical details about the experiment and its results are not available in the sources.
Why it matters
For NASA and similar agencies, this is one of the first documented cases of a generative AI model assisting in route planning for an actual space vehicle, albeit so far only with human review before final upload. It points to a direction space engineering may take for missions so distant that real-time control from Earth is not possible.
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