NASA's Mars rover Perseverance has taken its first short drive on the surface of the Red Planet, two weeks after the robot science lab's picture-perfect touchdown on the floor of a massive crater, mission managers said.

The six-wheeled, car-sized astrobiology probe put a total of 6.5 metres on its odometer during a half-hour test spin within Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient, long-vanished lakebed and river delta on Mars.

Taking directions from mission managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles, the rover rolled 4m forward, turned about 150 degrees to its left and then drove backward another 2.5m.

"It went incredibly well," Anais Zarifian, a JPL mobility test engineer for Perseverance, said during a teleconference briefing with reporters, calling it a "huge milestone" for the mission.

NASA displayed a photo taken by the rover showing the wheel tread marks left in the reddish, sandy Martian soil after its first drive.

Another vivid image of the surrounding landscape shows a rugged, ruddy terrain littered with large, dark boulders in the foreground and a tall outcropping of rocky, layered deposits in the distance — marking the edge of the river delta.

Some additional, short-distance test driving is planned for Friday, US time.

Perseverance is capable of averaging 200m of driving per day.