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The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
The next generation Mars rover
May. 30, 2007 | 10:07 PDT | 17:07 UTC
Go to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory website and check out the newest video showing the Mars Science Laboratory mission, and you'll see the latest and greatest design for a roving mission to Mars. I've clipped and posted a few screen caps below.
The first part of the video shows the landing, which will not be at all like the last three successful Mars landings. Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity all landed by means of an absolutely crazy scheme where the whole hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars' worth of spacecraft was encased in airbags and smashed at a relatively high speed onto the surface of Mars, bouncing a dozen or more times until rolling to a stop. That system produced three successful landings in three attempts, so the engineers clearly knew what they were doing, but I have got to say that, to me, that seems like no way to treat a spacecraft.
Mars Science Laboratory (abbreviated MSL) is much bigger than Pathfinder, Spirit, and Opportunity and absolutely cannot use the same landing technique, so the engineers had to go back to the drawing board. They're using a heat shield and parachute to decelerate through Mars' upper and middle atmosphere, the same as Pathfinder and the rovers, but after that the landing system changes. In the video, you'll see the heat shield fall off and -- surprise! -- there's no lander; while MSL is still way up in the air, the six wheels are already out and ready to touch Martian soil. Retrorockets fire, slowing the descent, much like Viking. The descent slows and slows. Then the rover is lowered on cables to the ground as the backshell -- retrorockets still firing -- floats overhead. Mars Science Laboratory descendsIn this still from a movie of Mars Science Laboratory's landing, the rover descends on cables from the backshell as retrorockets fire to slow its descent. Credit: NASA / JPL |
The rover is gently set down on its wheels, the cables are cut, and the backshell hovers away, presumably to some safe distance at which point the rockets cut off and the spent backshell crashes (they don't show that in the video). Already on its wheels, MSL is ready to go. That seems like a much better way to land on Mars. It'll still be scary and there will still be a million things that can go wrong -- but setting the rover down so carefully just seems much less insane to me than throwing the spacecraft to the ground.Mars Science LaboratoryCredit: NASA / JPL |
My first reaction to the visualization of MSL in this video was to be a bit turned off. MSL is nuclear powered and needs no solar panels; so there are no gleaming glassy bat wings like the rovers have. Instead, there is a big radioisotope thermal generator sticking out the rover's butt. And the mast is off-center to the rover, making it asymmetrical. It's just not as pretty as Spirit or Opportunity. But looks aren't everything, and of course they mean exactly nothing when it comes to exploring Mars.
The rest of the video shows just what MSL can do. The enormous spread of its wheels lets it roll around rocky terrain with ease. For scale, as a little reminder, here's a comparison of the sizes of Sojourner, Spirit, and MSL wheels:The wheels on Mars keep growingComparison of three sets of rover wheels for Mars: Sojourner (left), the Mars Exploration Rovers (middle), and the Mars Science Laboratory (right). Credit: NASA / JPL |
MSL is big for two reasons: in order to have better mobility, and to carry an incredibly capable scientific instrument package. MSL's mast is equipped not only with a camera, but with a laser that can vaporize small amounts of rock from a distance for analysis by a spectrometer called ChemCam; and its robotic arm has a corer that can drill to some depth, retrieve a fresh rock sample, and deliver it to a sophisticated laboratory for visual and chemical analysis. Zap!Mars Science Laboratory is equipped with a laser that can vaporize small amounts of rock for analysis from a distance with the ChemCam spectrometer mounted on the rover's mast. Credit: NASA / JPL |
Mars Science Laboratory is still some time away; it's scheduled to launch in the fall of 2009, and will arrive at Mars a year later.
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