On June 10 and July 7 2003, two of NASA’S Mars Exploration Rovers, named Spirit and Oppourtunity, were launched from Earth and sent hurtling towards the Red Planet. Their aim was to gather information about the history of water on the planet. The two robots touched down on Mars January 3 and January 24 PST, 2004 (January 4 and January 25 UTC, 2004). The mission is part of a long term NASA Mars Exploartion program, a program designed to explore the planet.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/5UmRx4dEdRI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
One of the major goals of the mission was to look for and characterize a wide variety of rocks and soils that may show some indication of the history of water on the planet. The two rovers are operating on different sides of the planet at areas that appear to have been affected by water in the past.
As soon as the airbags deployed and the robots landed safely on the surface of the planet, the rovers rolled out of the landing craft and photographed the surrounding terrain. The images taken gave scientists the data required to seek out promising geological areas that tell part of the story of water in Mars’ past. After the scientists agree where to go, the rovers move to the location and perform scientiffic investigations.
In order for the rovers to continue operating, they need power. The power needed comes from the sun and is captured by solar cells on the robot. The cells are in the shape of wings, as to maximise the amount of rays absorbed. The Rovers also carry two 8 amp lithium batteries. The solar cells recharge these batteries. During the rovers’ primary missions, their solar arrays produced around 900 watt-hours of energy per martian day. Unfoutunately the Solar cells limit the rover to which parts of the planet it can explore. The rovers have to keep around the equatorial region where there is enough sun to keep itself operating.
To send information to earth the rovers communicate with “Mars Odessey” which is always orbiting the planet. In the 16 minutes it takes Mars Odessey to travel from one horizon to the other, the robots and orbiter can communicate for around 10 minutes. Mars Odessey then relays the data back to mission control on earth.
The Rovers’ “Brains” are definately the most important part of the robot. The avionics, or “brains”, of the robot are housed in the centre of the robot. These crucial electronics control the movement and instrument deployment of the robot. The Computers in both Spirit and Opportunity run with a 32-bit Rad 6000 microprocessor,which is a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC chip , running at a speed of 20 million instructions per second. Onboard memory includes 128 megabytes of random access memory, with 256 megabytes of flash memory and smaller amounts of other non-volatile memory. This allows data to be kept even with no power. These vital componments are situated in what is known as a “warm electronics box”. This box is gold plated so that the components inside keep warm in the freezing -96 degrees celsius martian night. Heat from the warm electronics box comes from a combination of electrical heaters, eight radioisotope heater units and the heat given off by the components themselves. For balance the rover has what is known as An Inertial Measurement Unit which calculates the tilt of the robot and helps it make precise movements.
The scientiffic instruments aboard the two rovers are as follows. The Robots have with them what is known as a Rock Abrasion Tool or RAT. The RAT is a lightweight tool about the size of a can of softdrink. The RAT is capable of brushing and grinding rocks and has been critical sofar in the search for ancient traces of water on Mars.
The Rovers also have on board a instrument known as a Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES). The Mini Tes is used for the remote investigation of the mineralogy of rocks and soils. It identifies rock-forming minerals, and can also see through dust coatings that tend to obscure spectral features of rocks to some extent. The rovers also have onboard a specialized Moessbauer Spectrometer and a Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS). The Moessbauer spectrometer works by providing the detailed mineralogy of different kinds of iron-bearing rocks and soils. It does this by emmiting radiation and recieving an “echo” of that radiation that it then uses to determine the presence, amount and types of iron-bearing minerals that are being examined. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer exposes rocks and soils to alpha particles and X-rays from curium-244, and then measures the energy of backscattered alpha and X rays.
Also onboard are Panoramic camera (Pancam) color imaging systems. The Mast assembly of the Pancam frees the cameras to rotate 360 degrees to obtain a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape.The Pancam cameras can fit in the palm of your hand, weigh 270 grams each and can generate panoramic images as large as 4,000 pixels high by 24,000 pixels around. The detectors in Pancams are charge coupled devices. These devices form the image in the same way as film does in a conventional camera.
Another instrument that is used is a Microscopic Imager. This is placed at the end of the rover arm next to the spectrometres and the RAT.The MI is a combination of a microscope and a CCD camera that determines small-scale features of martian rocks and soils.
So as shown above The Mars Rover Exploration mission is truly an important program. It is a marvel of human inguenity that we can send these robots over thousands of miles in space to land on a not-so-distant planet. The sheer importance of this program is massive. We humans are at last, after hundreds of years looking at the stars, just beginning to be able to reach them. The Mars Rover Exploration Mission I believe is the foundation of interplanetary exploration in years to come.
Some may argue that instead of investing billions of dollars in outer space, we should focus more on our own planet and its various and numerous problems. Why should we spend all that money in space when there are millions of people living in poverty all around the world. Why should we spend all that money in space while funding for education and health could be increased. These are some of the arguments that we are faced with today. And it is our descision today that counts. Should we continue to explore the heavens or should we look not to the skies but to ourselves.
Watanabe. (2007). Mars Exploration Rover Mission. [Internet]. Jet Propulsion Lab of California, U.S.A. Available from http://marsrover.nasa.gov/overview/ [ Accessed 24/2/08].
Video from Youtube.com
The KUKA KR 1000 Titan 6-Axis Industrial Robot. The titan has an incedible payload of 1000kg and a reach of 3200mm. This robot is designed to handle extremely heavy lifting and manipulation procedures. This robot is targeted to the automotive and foundry industries.
