NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has highlighted the Perseverance Mars mission team and a Guinness World Records certificate marking the rover's distance record on the Red Planet, according to a Photojournal entry dated Oct. 13, 2026. The team gathered in the lab's Mars Yard for the image.

Standing in front of the group was OPTIMISM, described as the Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars. NASA says the full-scale engineering model is used to plan the rover's driving routes and science activities on Mars.

JPL, managed by Caltech, built and operates the Perseverance rover on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency's Mars Exploration Program. The entry credits the image to NASA/JPL-Caltech and does not give a figure for the distance record.