Mars_2020 Rover

from NASA-JPL_This image is from computer-assisted-design work on the Mars 2020 rover. The design borrows heavily NASA's Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012.  Though similar in appearance the newest rover adds new science instruments and a sampling system to carry out new goals for the 2020 mission.

China's Yuto Rover Dead for Real This Time

China’s lunar rover Yutu has been pronounced dead—for the second and (probably) final time, this time after a bit over two-and-a-half years on the moon.

It’s unlikely that the rover is going to pop back from the dead this time, though. Jade Rabbit (which is Yuto in Chinese) was only meant to last for three months and ended up lasting 31 months. In that time, the rover was slowly losing functionality. Towards the end of the rover's life, it slowly lost the ability to even move away from its current spot. Even so, Jade Rabbit continued to beam back data to researchers

For complete Gizmoto article - click  HERE

NASA Selects Five Mars Orbiter Concept Studies

NASA has selected five U.S. aerospace companies to conduct concept studies for a potential future Mars orbiter mission. 

The companies contracted are: The Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, California; Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver; Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California; Orbital ATK in Dulles, Virginia; and Space Systems/Loral in Palo Alto, California.

For complete NASA article, click HERE

check out this youtube entry

You just have to check out this you tube entry.

 From YouTube is the Vblog  Smarter Every Day  and entails the sophistication and high tech that went into the design of the drill head on the curiosity mars rover

youtube smarter every day entry

Opportunity Rover Completes Marathon

NASA's wonder rover Opportunity has set yet another benchmark, one that should prove difficult to copy by any of its contemporaries.  Opportunity, it seems, has set a very high bar by completing   a marathon distance of better than 26 miles, and doing so in 11+ years to boot! (the rover is a bit on the, dare I say, curious side and managed to stop and explore many times)  

The rover (which has long since passed the "best used by" date) set the mark during a drive of 153 feet.

According to the NASA post:

• Opportunity became the long-distance champion of all off-Earth vehicles, Last year, when it topped the previous record set by the former Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 moon rover.
• Opportunity's original three-month prime mission in 2004 yielded evidence of environments with liquid water soaking the ground and flowing on planet’s surface. As the rover continued to operate far beyond expectations for its lifespan, scientists chose the rim of Endeavour Crater as a long-term destination. Since 2011, examinations of Endeavour's rim have provided information about ancient wet conditions less acidic, and more favorable for microbial life, than the environment that left clues found earlier in the mission

Continue reading the NASA article HERE 

Life On Mars?

Wow, well if you are like me, you know what this photo HAS to be, but wish it was what it seems to be:

Don't Dismiss Life on Mars Just Yet.

 

NASA's rover Curiosity was sent to Mars to explore Gale's crater, looking for the most part for the chemical markers that could indicate that in Mars' distant past, the Martian environment could have supported life.

NASA Opens Registration for 2015 Exploration Rover Challenge

From the NASA web page:NASA has opened team registration for the 2015 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge.  The event will be held April 16-18, 2015, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, in Huntsville Al.

The challenge is open to high school, college and university students in hands-on, experiential learning activities, while also testing potential technologies needed for future deep space exploration.

Student teams participating in the Rover Challenge must design, engineer and test a human-powered rover on a mock course designed to simulate the harsh and demanding terrains future NASA explorers may find on distant planets, moons and asteroids.

For complete article, go HERE for more

NASA's Next Rover in 2020 Will Step Up the Science

The next rover NASA will send to Mars in 2020 will carry  carefully-selected instruments to conduct  science and exploration  investigations on the Red Planet at an unprecedented level.

NASA announced that it has selected 7 instruments out of a pool of 58 for the Mars 2020 rover.  The Mars 2020 rover will be based on the design of the highly successful Curiosity, which  is still operating on Mars, after it's landing 2 years ago.

From the NASA article:

• Scientists will use the Mars 2020 rover to identify and select a collection of rock and soil samples that will be stored for potential return to Earth by a future mission.

Here is the link to the NASA ARTICLE

NASA Wants to Terraform Mars?

That's what I read in this Gizmodo article .....wwwweeeeeeell terraforming may be stretching it, but NASA is considering sending plants on the next rover mission.  Nope, no furrows or holes with seeds in them.... there WILL be a modified Cubesat box with Earth air, dirt and a small handful of seeds from a plant that is a cousin to the mustard plant.  Oh and the box will be no where near Martian dirt but  positioned on the back of the rover (less and less glamorous ).   However this experiment, called the Mars Plant Experiment, would be entirely self-contained and will hopefully help lay the foundation for a long-term, sustainable base and possibly even colonization of Mars

Now don't go looking for a brand new rover on Mars, anytime soon.  NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021.

Read the Space.com article HERE

NASA's Opportunity Rover - 10 Years Out & Still Making Landmard Martian Discoveries

NASA's Opportunity rover landed on Mars January 24, 2004  and has driven 24 miles from where it landed ten years and going on its ninety day original mission.  

Opportunity's controllers have the rover examining the rim of the Endeavor Crater, halfway around the planet from NASA's latest Mars rover, Curiosity.   In 2010, Opportunity detected evidence  of a clay mineral known as iron-rich smectite.   This was significant because the material was found in geological layers laid down before the formation of the Endeavor crater about 4 billion years ago.   Where the smectite was found in the geologic strata tells researchers that Mars was much warmer and wet much earlier in Mar's history. 

NASA reports that Opportunity's health hasn't changed much in the last year.  Researchers are confident that the hardy rover is capable of much more.  From the NASA article:

• "Over the past decade, Mars rovers have made the Red Planet our workplace, our neighborhood," said John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project, which built and operates Opportunity. "The longevity and the distances driven are remarkable. But even more important are the discoveries that are made and the generation that has been inspired."

Read the complete NASA article HERE

NASA Snaps Pic of Yuto

From 93 miles overhead, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's camera has captured the landing site of the Chang'e 3 lander.   Both the lander and the Yuto rover.   The remarkable thing about the photo containing the pair is the rover itself is less than 5 feet across!

 

 

If you go to the IO9 site you will see a before and after pic to make the craft easier to spot.

 

Check out the site HERE

Curiosity Takes Great Photo of Self

I know, the rover Curiosity has proven its ability to take a picture with itself as the subject, but up until recently those photo has all the charm of a Chilton Auto Repair Manual.  I know, NASA needed to see how the rover fared during the trip and various other shots.  But when when the operators get the chance, they prove that they can  do some really great work.

This photo shows us, in part, just how big the machine is.  Each of those wheels is over half a meter or 1.6 feet.  Plus we can see all the workings as well as the tread material!   Looking back at the mountains between the bogey wheels makes me feel like I am there!

You can see the ultra high rez photos at Space do Com here

Manned Trip to Mars Impossible with Current Tech

NASA has concluded that a manned trip to Mars is out of the question at our present level of tech.  

This piece of very disappointing  news comes after NASA had a chance to review the Radiation Assessment Detector aboard the rover Curiosity.    Even from inside the spacecraft the RAD was able to take radiation levels while traveling from the Earth to Mars.    These levels were determined to be to high for our present level of radiation shielding. 

rFrom the Gizmodo article:

• The findings, which are published in the May 31 edition of the journal Science, indicate radiation exposure for human explorers could exceed NASA's career limit for astronauts if current propulsion systems are used.

Go to the Gizmodo article HERE  for more on the radiation and dangers it would pose.

Discovery Channel's Incredible Robots

CrystalWizard sent me a note saying"I ran across a very cool video on robots...when ....hunting stuff to watch"  and "this" is would seem is an in-depth look at the early evolution of robots et-all as well as a critical look at the various systems that would constitute a "robot" or an autonomous device that can overcome its own physical short comings to complete its' mission.   

The 47 minute program ( the equivalent of an hour program on US television ) is slightly dated as some of our most sophisticated probes in the form of NASA's Cassini–Huygens or the latest NASA Mars  Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover are not mentioned, though some of the earlier tests on Curiosity's suspension was in evidence.

My conclusion is, that after watching, not only will you find it entertaining, but very likely informative, especially if you are not as familiar as some when it comes to Robots in science fiction text or possibly some of the earlier efforts into learning an movement.

This is most definitely a check it out.

Thanks CW!


 

Curiosity Flappin in the Wind?

Well its' parachute is at least. From the Discovery.com article:

• Shortly after Curiosities landing, NASA’s orbiting Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter managed to photograph not only the parachute, but also the backshell, heat shield, skycrane and counterweights.
• 
  

Now the team is using the HiRISE high resolution imaging system to take photos of the same area over a five month period.  What the series shows, that even though the Martian atmosphere is thin, 100 times thinner than Earth's, large surfaces such as the huge areo-braking parachute can still be reacted on if light enough.  

The biggest changes seem to take place from September 8th 2012 and November 30th  of the same year.  During this three month period the rover's discarded 'chute became much less reflective then became more so indicating that at least part of the structure was being moved and flapped by the Martian breeze.      

Full Discovery News article HERE                                                                                                  

Curiosity Rover - upcoming events

Curiosity has been on the Martian surface now for a couple of weeks, but they have been a long way from idle weeks. JPL engineers have been testing Curiosity’s test instruments, which have passed all test and are working perfectly.

Next tests will involve the wheels which will involve position alignment and movement. These should be completed over the next few days. Soon afterwards, Curiosity will be instructed to un-ship its' laser and move to its' first target which is a rock with the designation N165.

This rock will be used quite literally for target practice for the laser which will shoot N165 with 30 laser blasts in a 10 second period. JPL hopes the laser will disintegrate a piece of the rock for spectrometer analysis of the rock's composition.


Curiosity recently underwent a complete software overhaul.  NASA/JPL needed to swap out the software that ran the rover during flight/landing phases was not appropriate for roaming the Martian surface.  Since the rover did not have the memory resources to hold and execute both programs, they needed to be swapped before Curiosity could begin exploration duties.   The procedure took four days because of the distance involved, plus extreme caution had to be taken not to overload the rover and lose communications or worse.  

Muppet Mars

Could not resist....  Here someone took the time to photoshop in the Muppet spacers....you know the one on the left is saying Rover...the rest can only be imagined...

Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter Catches Curiosity In Mid-Air!

Wow, after the hugely exciting landing Monday morning of the Mars Rover Curiosity and the first three pictures from the lander, I didn't think that could be upstaged even for a second....Well, let me take those words back because according to an NBC.Com photo posted from NASA, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that wowed the crowd this morning with an incredible picture of the rover at the end of its parachute, six minutes into the seven minute landing maneuver, still under the 'chute!

It would seem that this was not all by chance however....again according to the article:

• The orbiter's imaging team had planned the shot for months, and the payoff came when MRO snapped the picture from a distance of 211 miles. (The photo shows) Curiosity was about 2 miles above the Martian surface, still protected inside its Mars Science Laboratory back shell and heat shield.

The timing was so critical that if the photo had been taken one second before or after this one was snapped, there would have been nothing in the frame! Even more surprising is that HiRise controllers had to upload commands to the spacecraft about 72 hours prior to the image being taken!

I can remember the Curiosity controllers describing where the orbiters were in relationship to the rover and that any pictures being taken or data being transferred would have to deal with crafts at high angles and very close to the horizon. In any case, the MRO stands tall even in the big shadow cast by the arrival of Curiosity.

For those that are interested -  the resolution for the photo is a bit over 13 inches per pixel.  (Not bad, I will take that!)

7 Minutes of Terror: The Mars Curiosity Landing

They call it 7 minutes of terror, the time it will take the Mars Curiosity Rover to travel from the top of Mars' atmosphere to landing on the planet's surface. As one speaker points out, it will take 14 minutes for the signal to reach Earth, so when they first get confirmation that the rover has encountered Mars' atmosphere it will either be alive or dead, for seven minutes on Mars.

To drive that fact home, they have produced a short video of the landing sequence, which I am sure most of us are familiar with, but in a most entertaining manner. I think you will be entertained, I know I was!

Curosity is due to touch down 10:31-pm pdt August 5 2012 1:30-am on August 6th eastern daylight time.