Moving Around on the Martian Surface.

Moving Around on the Martian Surface.

Sci-Fi often presents us our beloved world being colonized by Martians. It turns out it’s not Martians who invaded Earth, but Earthlings who are visiting the Red Planet, and rovers have played a key role in the study of its environment.

             The Curiosity rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, after an eight-month, 352-million-mile journey. Learning from previous landings, engineers used a heat shield, a parachute, retro-rockets, and a sky crane to lower the vehicle to the surface. Because it would take 7 minutes for the rover to descend from the top of the atmosphere to the surface, but signals from the vehicle take about 14 minutes to reach Earth, the landing was dubbed "7 minutes of terror."  Much bigger than previous rovers Spirit or Opportunity, Curiosity weighs 5293 pounds on Earth. The rover is outfitted with an X-band transmitter for communication and a radiation detector to gather information for human missions in the future.

              The Mars 2020 rover will be based on Curiosity’s configuration. It would be car-sized, about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall. It will have three instruments which are international contributions such as the SuperCam, an instrument that can provide imaging, chemical composition analysis and mineralogy, and provided by France; Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, or MEDA, a set of sensors that will provide measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity and dust size and shape, and provided by Spain; and The Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Exploration, or RIMFAX, a ground-penetrating radar that will provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure beneath Mars’ surface, and provided by Norway.

               Another instrument, The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resources Utilization Experiment, will ingest the toxic Martian air and produce breathable oxygen from the carbon dioxide it contains. This is a proof-of-concept device, pointing the way for future astronauts’ life support systems on Mars. Also, engineers studying how Curiosity’s wheels cracked on Mars’ rough terrain expect to design sturdier wheels for the new rover.

CHM1045 Honors: Dario A. Rodriguez, Leandro Dorta.

Engineering Group II