NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California opened the new Rover Operations Center (ROC) on December 10, 2025 – a hub from which current and future robotic missions on the surface of the Moon and Mars will be coordinated. It is an operational and development node combining expertise gained through more than three decades of managing Martian rovers with the latest tools in the field of artificial intelligence and industry collaboration.

Representatives of the commercial space sector and the artificial intelligence industry, scientists, engineers, and JPL leadership gathered at the inauguration in the historic Space Flight Operations Facility building. During working sessions with current mission teams, they learned how the ROC is taking on the role of a "meta-center" for surface robots – from rover route planning, through testing new autonomy algorithms, to preparing operations for upcoming missions within NASA's Moon and Mars exploration program.

A special emphasis of the event was on the first official application of generative artificial intelligence in planning the work of the Perseverance rover on Mars. The new approach allows computer systems to, based on satellite imagery and field data, propose future rover movement paths that avoid dangerous slopes and rocks, saving precious time and energy needed for scientific measurements.

Center of Excellence for Surface Missions

The Rover Operations Center is conceived as a "center of excellence" for all JPL missions involving vehicles, helicopters, or drones on other worlds. Operational teams, autonomy engineers, mechanics and navigation experts, as well as specialists for collaboration with industrial and academic partners, are united in one unit. The goal is to create a place where knowledge, tools, and infrastructure are shared faster than ever before, and new ideas are tested very early on actual missions.

JPL has a long history behind it of managing robotic missions on Mars: from the pioneering Sojourner rover in the late 1990s, through the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, to today's Curiosity and Perseverance robots. Curiosity and Perseverance, as the only active NASA surface missions on Mars, are key users of the new infrastructure, together with Ingenuity – the first and so far only helicopter to have flown on another planet.

Therefore, the ROC is not just a new control room full of monitors. Built into its background are years of experience working with vehicles at great distances, complex terrain simulation systems, laboratories for equipment testing, and a flexible software framework that allows for the rapid integration of new artificial intelligence algorithms. In this way, the ROC builds upon existing JPL infrastructure but gives it a new level of connectivity and scalability.

In practice, this means that the same team and the same tools can be used for different missions – for example, for further work on Mars, but also for future rovers and robotic systems that will operate on the Moon as part of the Artemis missions. Instead of each mission developing its own isolated operating system, the ROC becomes a common starting point from which knowledge and technologies are easily transferred from one project to another.

"Force Multiplier" for NASA and the Commercial Sector

JPL Director Dave Gallagher describes the ROC as a "force multiplier" – a place where decades of specialized knowledge merge with new tools and are passed on to partners. In practice, this manifests through open collaboration programs with commercial space companies, technology startups, and university laboratories.

For the industry, this means an opportunity to collaborate with experienced NASA teams at an early stage of robotic vehicle and software development, and to test their products under JPL conditions. For NASA, on the other hand, the ROC represents a way to accelerate the development of new concepts for Moon and Mars exploration, but also to strengthen the American position in the global space economy. One of the center's goals is to increase the mission "cadence" – so that new robotic expeditions are launched more frequently, with lower operational costs and greater scientific payoff.

The ROC does not serve only NASA missions. Through a public-private partnership model, levels of cooperation are envisaged that include consulting on mission architecture, assistance in integrating autonomous systems, joint testing, and, ultimately, participation in the actual management of vehicles on the surface. This establishes a virtual network of operational missions in which different partners can share data, experiences, and infrastructure.

In an era where more and more private companies are developing lunar landers, logistics systems, and surface rovers, such a knowledge hub becomes a key element of the ecosystem. The ROC connects experience gained on Mars with the needs of upcoming missions to the Moon, which in the Artemis era will require increasingly sophisticated robotic assistants for astronauts.

How the ROC Was Created: Lessons from Mars

In a section NASA describes as the "Genesis of ROC", it is emphasized that the new center is the result of decades of continuous refinement of autonomy technology and robotic systems. Sojourner had already proven that a vehicle could move safely on the surface of another planet, but each subsequent generation of rovers required increasingly advanced decision-making algorithms and increasingly robust hardware.

Curiosity, for example, introduced more sophisticated self-driving capabilities, where the rover analyzes images from its own cameras and chooses safer paths within given constraints. Perseverance went a step further, not only in navigation but also in planning and executing scientific activities: part of the work once manually done by planners and engineers in control rooms is now taken over by software.

One of the most striking examples is Perseverance's ability to independently schedule energy-intensive activities, such as heating during cold Martian nights. Instead of a human manually defining a detailed energy balance for each night, the rover receives a broader list of commands and then estimates itself when it is safest to execute them. In this way, an SUV-sized car can rationally manage its own energy and perform more scientific measurements or longer drives without additional burden on the team on Earth.

The ROC systematizes this experience: knowledge about how a difficulty was solved on one mission is turned into standardized methods, software modules, and operational protocols. These "knowledge packages" are then offered to future missions, whether they are NASA projects or missions of industrial partners relying on JPL expertise.

Artificial Intelligence as a New Team Member

The biggest leap the ROC brings to rover operations concerns the integration of advanced artificial intelligence, especially generative models. During a three-day internal "AI challenge", a team of experts tested the capabilities of generative algorithms on concrete operational cases – from route planning to the analysis of potential scientific targets based on large datasets.

The result was clear: there is a whole range of tasks that are currently routine and time-consuming for humans, but represent a relatively simple problem for computer models. Artificial intelligence can quickly review large archives of satellite images, combine them with terrain models and already known hazard zone maps, and propose a series of connected points through which the rover should move. The human team still makes the final decision, but much faster than before because the analysis is not done from scratch.

Using Perseverance as an example, it was demonstrated how AI processes high-resolution orbiter images of the Jezero Crater and other relevant data to generate trajectories that avoid steep slopes, dunes, and areas with large rocks. Instead of planners spending hours micro-designing the route, they can now evaluate several variants created by AI and focus on scientific priorities: which interesting rocks, layers, and sediments are worth sacrificing, and which must be visited.

Generative models in the ROC are not used only for navigation. They can help in writing and verifying operational procedures, proposing alternative plans for days when technical problems occur, and even summarizing large amounts of telemetry data into understandable reports for scientists. This reduces pressure on existing teams and opens space for more complex scientific analyses and new types of experiments in the field.

A Walk Through the Mars Yard and Space Simulator

During the ROC inauguration, guests went through a kind of "field school" through key JPL facilities. One of the first destinations was the famous Mars Yard – an outdoor area covered with sand, rocks, and artificially shaped slopes mimicking the challenging conditions on Mars. It was there that the ERNEST (Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped Terrain) prototype demonstrated its capabilities of climbing steep inclines and maneuvering in unstable soil.

ERNEST shows the direction in which future robots for extremely demanding terrains are moving, such as crater rims and steep rock formations on the Moon and Mars. In combination with the ROC, such prototypes allow engineers to test how autonomy systems will react in situations that are difficult to simulate by computer alone – for example, when soil cohesion changes, when wheels slip, or when the rover must turn in a very narrow space.

Another important stop was the 25-Foot Space Simulator, a tubular vacuum chamber used for testing spacecraft in conditions similar to those in space. This facility has hosted numerous famous missions throughout history, from the Voyager 1 and 2 probes to Perseverance itself, and today it also serves to test components of future lunar landers and other experiments. During the visit, experts presented how the ROC will connect with data from such tests and use them to prepare operations on actual missions.

Participants also had the opportunity to see where "rover drivers" – engineers who manage vehicles daily – plan the next moves. In control rooms that are now integrated with the ROC, alongside classic telemetry screens, new AI tools for route planning, energy management, and scenario simulation are displayed. The difference compared to earlier periods is not only in aesthetics but in the depth of digital integration: data from different systems flow in a unified environment, enabling faster reactions and more precise decisions.

Rovers, Helicopters, and Future Drones as a Unified System

The ROC does not view rovers, helicopters, and future drones as separate projects, but as parts of a unified surface mobility system. On Mars, this concept has already been tested by the combination of Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter, which provided aerial insight into the terrain ahead of the rover during its historic campaign. Each mission brought new lessons on how to coordinate multiple vehicles, how to distribute tasks among them, and how to use different sensors in the most efficient way.

On the Moon, as part of the Artemis missions, such an approach will be even more important. Astronauts will need reliable vehicles for transport, supply, and exploration, and robotic rovers and drones will assist them in reconnaissance, cargo transport, and monitoring environmental conditions. The ROC is designed to be the "nervous system" of these diverse platforms – the place where it is planned who does what, when, and with what risk.

In the background of this are NASA programs dealing with space suits and surface mobility, from which stems the requirement that humans and robots work side by side in an extremely hostile environment. The ROC will play a key role in testing joint operation procedures: for example, how a robotic rover can prepare the terrain for an astronaut walk, mark dangerous zones, or set up instruments that a human will later read or rearrange.

Platform for Future Lunar and Martian Missions

One of the main tasks of the ROC is to support the upcoming wave of missions to the Moon and Mars being developed by both NASA and commercial companies. As part of these plans, a larger number of landers, smaller rovers, and autonomous systems are foreseen to perform specific tasks – from searching for water and other resources, through geological surveys, to establishing infrastructure for future human bases.

At the technological level, the ROC will be the place where new autonomy algorithms are first tested in simulations, then on prototypes like ERNEST in the Mars Yard, and then slowly introduced to actual missions. Such a gradual approach reduces risk: every new function must pass a phase in which it is compared with existing procedures and its behavior in different conditions is monitored in detail.

An example of a technological demonstration that is particularly interesting in the context of the ROC is CADRE – a network of small rovers jointly exploring the surface of the Moon. Although it is a separate project, the concept of multiple robots collaborating and making decisions as a team fits perfectly into the philosophy of the new center. The ROC can serve as an operational hub where protocols for "swarm" missions, in which several robots simultaneously measure different parameters over a wider area, are developed and tested.

Such missions require a completely different way of management compared to the classic scenario of one rover and one planning team. Instead of detailed individual commands, the team in the ROC defines goals and constraints, and then monitors how the robotic system organizes itself to achieve them. This opens the possibility of supervising an entire "fleet" of vehicles on the Moon and Mars from one coordination center in the future.

New Model of Collaboration: From Mission Architecture to Spacewalks

The ROC is not conceived as a closed NASA laboratory, but as a place through which partners can enter into collaboration at different levels. The lowest level includes classic consulting – help in defining mission architecture, from the choice of rover type and sensors to the method of communication with the surface. A higher level implies joint testing and integration of autonomous systems in which tools developed in the ROC merge with solutions from industrial partners.

At the most advanced level, it is possible for partners to participate in the mission operations themselves. This includes access to ROC simulation tools, joint planning of daily rover or drone activities, and even the creation of specific scenarios – for example, for preparing a site where astronauts will perform a spacewalk. In this context, the ROC also supports research into human-robot interaction: how an astronaut, limited by a massive suit and communication delay, can most effectively ask for help from a robot in the field, and vice versa.

Such a collaboration model is also important for the scientific community. Instead of finding out about mission results only after the publication of scientific papers, some researchers can gradually enter operational processes – helping in the selection of targets, interpreting data in real-time, and proposing plan changes in the field. The ROC is the place where these interactions are structured and organized to avoid informational confusion while maximizing the creative potential of interdisciplinary teams.

ROC as a Showcase for Future Control Centers

Although the primary mission of the ROC is focused on surface robots on the Moon and Mars, the concept it develops can serve as a template for future control centers across NASA and beyond. The idea that one center connects operations, software development, prototype testing, industry collaboration, and the education of new generations of experts can be applied to other types of missions, from orbital satellites to deep space missions.

JPL has for decades been considered one of the key pillars of NASA's solar system exploration strategy. With the opening of the Rover Operations Center, this role expands: JPL not only manages existing missions but actively builds a platform on which new ones will be born and developed. As the number of missions and involved partners increases, the ROC should become a place where different design philosophies and approaches to autonomy gather – from conservative, fully controlled operations to bolder concepts in which robots are given much greater freedom of decision-making.

In this way, the Rover Operations Center already represents a laboratory for future ways of working in space. What is currently being applied to Martian rovers and future lunar missions may become the standard for a whole range of robotic and human expeditions across the solar system in the coming decades.