New Mars Rover Rolls For the First Time 100
wooferhound writes "Like proud parents savoring their baby's very first steps, mission team members gathered in a gallery above a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to watch the Mars Curiosity rover roll for the first time. Engineers and technicians wore bunny suits while guiding Curiosity through its first steps, or more precisely, its first roll on the clean room floor. The rover moved forward and backward about 1 meter (3.3 feet). Mars Science Laboratory (aka Curiosity) is scheduled to launch in fall 2011 and land on the Red Planet in August 2012. Curiosity is the largest rover ever sent to Mars. It will carry 10 instruments that will help search an intriguing region of the Red Planet for two things: environments where life might have existed, and the capacity of those environments to preserve evidence of past life."
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I think you don't quite understand the utter, sheer enormity of a project like sending a probe to another planet, let alone an autonomous rover to land on the surface. As you yourself admit, this thing is going to travel hundreds of millions of kilometres through space, burn through an atmosphere, land on the surface of a planet and -hopefully- roll away into the sunset. NASA can't test it enough IMHO. This machine needs to have triple redundancies built in - it will need them. Watch the video: this thing i
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I understand it fine. Which is why I don't understand why the thing isn't made so bulletproof that you could test the wheels with the entire crew jumping up and down on top of the rover. It's not so much a matter of not testing it as of having to treat it like it's going to break because you're testing it. One of the Mars landers crapped out this year because too much frost (albeit a layer of dry ice a couple of feet thick) snapped its solar panels. Prissy design is passe. Let's send up some gear that
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I understand it fine. Which is why I don't understand why the thing isn't made so bulletproof that you could test the wheels with the entire crew jumping up and down on top of the rover.
Because then it'd be far too heavy.
There are more consequences of weight than just having to have a (super-linearly) larger rocket, though that is a significant issue given NASA's budget and not something that can be ignored even if it were the only issue.
The MSL is already so heavy that they can't use the simple airbag land
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But your example of survivability of the touchdown is begging the question. It can't survive the touchdown because they didn't make it strong enough. It's one of the reasons HMMV's are as strong as they are. You can dump them out of aircraft on a pallet.
The rocket thing is a good idea, except that the mass of rocket you need goes up super-linearly with the mass of payload you're trying to decelerate. I bet an auto-gyro would be even better, even in a thin CO2 atmosphere.
Your statement about where I work
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But your example of survivability of the touchdown is begging the question. It can't survive the touchdown because they didn't make it strong enough. It's one of the reasons HMMV's are as strong as they are. You can dump them out of aircraft on a pallet.
Um, the MSL can (in theory, the new mechanism is unproven) survive touchdown. If they made it significantly heavier, it wouldn't be able to because mass scales faster than strength. If you meant the airbag landing, that's just ludicrous, it can't survive t
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One of the Mars landers crapped out this year because too much frost (albeit a layer of dry ice a couple of feet thick) snapped its solar panels. Prissy design is passe.
Oh yeah, and denigrating the previous rover designs because one of them finally crapped out is just silly. You think they could have designed it to withstand a couple feet of ice accumulation and not had to sacrifice a ton of other things? If so, you're wrong.
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could have designed it to withstand a couple feet of ice accumulation and not had to sacrifice a ton of other things? If so, you're wrong.
No, I'm right, and for exactly that reason.
They sacrificed a ton of fuel they could have put into a bigger rocket to get a sturdier rover there, and still had it today to do another year of science.
Yes, the current rovers do impressively vs. their minimum mission requirements.
But their minimum mission requirements are kind of pathetic compared to what they could be if you
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They sacrificed a ton of fuel they could have put into a bigger rocket to get a sturdier rover there, and still had it today to do another year of science.
Assuming you meant "If they sacrificed a ton of fuel",
Pack half a dozen rockets with all the equipment we can think of, and get it on-site. Let the rover go around and assemble the gear onto itself when it gets there.
That's a great idea -- for the future. In fact it's in the future if NASA's technology development plans don't get too damaged by Congress
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One of the Mars landers crapped out this year because too much frost (albeit a layer of dry ice a couple of feet thick) snapped its solar panels. Prissy design is passe. Let's send up some gear that can do donuts.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your donuts-driven space exploration program *g*
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Lets say a Hum-V was built that runs perfectly on 100% solar power and weighs about the same as a standard Hum-V, we know it would cost roughly $480,000,000 to lift that Hum-V to the moon. Hard to see how that would be any cheaper...
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Break one of yours. Mine won't. Getting more done on Mission 1 is better than having to plan and fly Mission 2 to get less done.
The only caveat to this is how much rocket you got? If necessary, build that bigger, too.
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Ah sorry, amend my previous figure...to $80,000/pound.
Dang, I knew the dollar was down against the pound, but that's just ridiculous.
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source?
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Mars gravity is about 1/3 Earth's. If the structure is 3x stronger than it needs to be to support itself on Mars, it's just barely strong enough to support itself on Earth.
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The common internal cumbustion engine is not exactly rocket science. If I sent my CRX engine over to the wiz kids ahd had it rebuilt I would EXPECT them to re-check the oil, timing, etc, crank it over a few times without fire to make sure nothing clanks inside, and have the oil pressure gauge hooked up when it is fired off for the first time just to make sure nothng was forgotten or missed. Some shops even do compression tests just to spot obvious problems.
So I'm entirely pleased that JPL gave this new Ro
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So I'm entirely pleased that JPL gave this new Rover a cautious and careful initial drive. Why destroy a motor or break something else just because you 'know what you're doing'?
I'm not saying don't test it. But the reason you do prissy tests like this is because you expect that you don't know what you're doing, and you want to make sure the wheels go all the way around. Shows a lack of confidence in your processes and in the robustness of your gear. Which means both were designed by people who didn't hav
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the real problem isn't getting it to mars. It's getting to land safely on mars. There is very little atmosphere, not enough to use parachute, but enough to cause heat when plowing though it. Add to that enough gravity to make things like retro rockets unpractical
obligatory (Score:2)
August 2012: Mars rover discovers proof of complicated life forms on mars
December 2012: We get WTFPWNBBQed
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all we have to do is brake there glass domes as th (Score:2)
all we have to do is brake there glass domes as they can't live on the air hear.
Wheels (Score:4, Interesting)
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Because, among other reasons, there's only so much available to work with. Bigger tires means less room available for something else - or you have to accept complex (and potentially failure prone) inflating/unfolding mechanisms. (Which are going to up the cost.)
Designing a spacecraft is a complex trade off between hundreds o
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Then how do you make them "bubble-ish"? This thing has to operate on MARS, not in your back yard. The temperatures are extremely different, the conditions are different, etc. It's not a simple matter of "well, just use technology XYZ that we use here on earth".
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Take a look at the wheels designed for the lunar rover [wikipedia.org]. They seemed to work out pretty well.
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Except they ran on batteries, and they wouldn't last very long, and would be very very inefficient to be operated on solar power.
Remember, the rover is supposed to work unattended for a very long time on nothing but solar power.
Nuclear Power (Score:2)
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/technology/technologiesofbroadbenefit/power/ [nasa.gov]
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Thank you for pointing that out, I didn't knew. Interesting stuff in the PDF linked on that page.
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So the trade-off that is being sacrificed here appears to be life-span, right?
Theoretically, given the right conditions and luck, I reckon a solar-powered rover could last for an indefinite time.
Nuclear batteries seem to put a hard end-date to the mission timeline - in this case about two years.
Beat me to it (Score:2)
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The Lunar Rover had a person there to kick it if the mechanism jammed.
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It unloaded, landed and drove around by itself? Amazing!
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Well I imagine a swampy environment is different than that of the environment on Mars. Perhaps its just Hollywood that's lead me to believe its much more dustier than it is wet, and that most if any water was closer to frozen. And that it's not so much an issue that they get into a pit of sand, or anything like a swamp, but that a dust storm comes up, buries the thing half way deep, and then they have trouble getting it out.
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Um, aren't the Martian swamps where the dinosaurs and hot cave women chicks live?
Re:Wheels (Score:4, Informative)
Me thinks there is something wrong with that picture. *ALL* of them are wearing dust suits and walking around on static mats. Im sorry it is going to be sitting outside in a rather harsh environment. If you need to take that amount of care now perhaps there is something wrong? I can understand taking care building it but that makes me think it will fail later on when put in a mars dust storm.
The reason for the bunny suits at this stage is NOT to protect it against damage from dust, but to prevent contamination. If we're sending a probe to another planet to search for traces of life, the last thing we want is to "discover" life that we brought with us in the first place. Hence all spacecraft (or rover) components are handled in the most sterile of environments.
The mats in those photos are probably to ensure it doesn't roll over any lingering dust on the floor and to mark where people (in bunny suits) shouldn't work, I doubt those are actually anti-static mats, or if they are if that's the main purpose in there.
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I was sorely disappointed by the lack of floppy ears and cotton tails.
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Contaminating celestial bodies with terrestrial microorganisms, is against international law [unoosa.org].
NASA tries to avoid it [spacedaily.com]
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The cost of the mission is largely related to the cost of making and launching the rover. The reason why probes are made of exotic materials and fold up so compactly is that every kilogram costs tens of thousands of dollars to launch into space, and increased physical size means a larger & heavier shell. The increased cost of materials is more than made up by the reduced cost of fuel. The bigger and heavier the rover, the more it costs to send it to Mars. They can only get so much budget for a proje
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NASA meets Pimp My Ride.
JPL: "We're not sure what happened. We powered down the rover ovenight and this morning its up on cement blocks and missing its wheels."
On the other hand, putting hydraulics on it might help getting it unstuck.
Hydraulics and Mars surface temperature (Score:2)
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European ExoMars rover has skinny wheels (Score:2)
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they are huge, see the comment about the costs for lifting a kG of material.
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sry, that should be "kg" not a "kilo-gravity constant"
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Have you seen the pictures of this rover [wikipedia.org]? The wheels are about knee high [planetary.org] and about the same wide. They are on a rocker-bogey system that can scale objects twice the wheel height [planetary.org].
Every time we read that one of the existing rovers got stuck and the folks at JPL were working on getting it unstuck, I'd think the same thing.
The rover is not stuck because of the wheels. It is stuck because the body is hung up on
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If you want my opinion, they should be using something like the ATHLETE [nasa.gov] as a base instead of the rocker-bogey system. That way, they could just walk [nxtbot.com] the rover out of trouble.
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Badass rover! (Score:1)
That and its body looks like a cross between a battle ship and a Dalek.
But what matters most though, is if it works well and has new science capability.
Hope they fix.. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Hope they fix the dust collecting on the solar panels issue.
Something as simple as compressed air blowing on the panels would do the trick.
Since there is a thin atmosphere on Mars, they could just have a little compressor pump the Martian air instead of an air or CO2 canister.
Not even an issue. (Score:1, Interesting)
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/rover/energy/
"The Mars Science Laboratory rover will carry a radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the heat of plutonium's radioactive decay. This power source gives the mission an operating lifespan on Mars' surface of at least a full Martian year (687 Earth days) or more while also providing significantly greater mobility and operational flexibility, enhanced science payload capability, and exploration of a much larger range of latitudes and altitud
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Hope they fix the dust collecting on the solar panels issue. Something as simple as compressed air blowing on the panels would do the trick. Since there is a thin atmosphere on Mars, they could just have a little compressor pump the Martian air instead of an air or CO2 canister.
Yes, it's nuclear powered... problem solved :)
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Sssh, the torch and pitchfork carrying mob will here you use the other 'n' word and start to panic.
already fixed. (Score:2)
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Viking video images were miscalibrated to display the sky as blue.
But there is always a calibration target on the lander with known colors that is used for proper calibration.
Disappointment ensued when it was corrected as per the know target and the sky was pink.
Mars defense grid (Score:2)
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I'm sure that K'breel, Speaker for the Council, will deny allegations that Mars possesses plasma cannon technology.
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http://xkcd.com/695/ [xkcd.com]
All your eggs in one basket (Score:2)
modern probes started with that philosophy (Score:2)
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Because it would still cost about as much to get each one to Mars- probably a lot more, as you'd need multiple launch vehicles unless you make them really tiny and not very capable. Also, the smaller and cheaper you make 'em, the less science each can do. The multi-probe way might be the way to go if you're just rolling around looking for sites that may have had water present in the past, but what do you do when you discover an interesting spot? With the big probe, you crank up the arm with rock grinder, sc
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But we've done the big probe, can't reach interesting areas thing - why not try many small single/dual purpose probes? And yeah, I'm talking very tiny with just enough transmission power to get their signals back to the orbiter above. I see both angles, I'm just raising a general talking point.
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How many kilograms was the baguette that shut down your LHC?
Ribbit.
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And everytime I see a post like this I think of The Ariane 5 Flight 501 failure (integer overflow error, LOL!) and ask myself will they step into the 20th century and ever put someone on the moon?
Greetings from the United States.
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When will a nation that still calculates pressure in pound per square feet (hahaha that sounds so funny) make the step into the 21st century?
We made that step decaeds ago. It was 18 inches (45.72 cm) long.
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This whole trans-ocean flame-thread is silly - especially in the context of a space exploration discussion.
Greetings from Planet Earth.
Sturdy construction (Score:2)
ISTR that the Apollo LM was constructed for the Moon's gravity and would collapse under its own weight on Earth. It's interesting that a vehicle that's made for a 0.38G environment works on Earth.
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Bunny Suits (Score:1)
Engineers and technicians wore bunny suits while guiding Curiosity through its first steps
Sometimes I really wish "bunny suits" actually meant costumes of bunnies... Space exploration could use a little more whimsy.
The rover (Score:1)
Simple HTML confounds NASA rocket scientists (Score:1)
NASA may understand things related to aeronautics and space, but, sadly, they sure as heck don't understand HTML very well:
(a href="../../images/20100723_D2010_0723_D298_50.jpg" target="_blank" class="captionText") ... ...
(img src="../../images/20100723_D2010_0723_D298_50.jpg" width="120" height="90"
(a href="../../images/20100723_D2010_0723_D298_50.jpg")Full Size Image(/font)(/a)
and:
(a href="../../images/20100723_D2010_0723_D853_50.jpg" target=
Rolls Royce is building Mars rovers? (Score:2)