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Projects: Red Rover Goes to Mars

Basic Facts

With the Red Rover Goes to Mars project, The Planetary Society and the LEGO Company partnered to provide hands-on opportunities for students around the world to participate directly in real missions to Mars.

Student Scientists

Originally, the Student Scientists, nine kids from Brazil, Hungary, India, Poland, Taiwan, and the United States, were to have guided a robotic rover on the Mars Surveyor 2001 mission. Due to the cancellation of that mission, their task changed to the selection of the landing site for a future Mars sample return mission. In March of 2001 the nine Student Scientists traveled to the United States to work at Malin Space Science Systems with the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor Mission. In one of the three images of Mars they took using the Mars Orbiter Camera, they discovered a strange boulder field for which planetary scientists still have no explanation. The great success of the Student Scientists paved the way for the next groups of kids, the Student Navigators and the Student Astronauts.

Student Navigators

The Student Navigators were eight kids, age 11 to 17, who were chosen in an international contest in March, 2001. They traveled from India, Australia, Poland, and the United States to Pasadena, California in order to visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on February 12 and 13, 2002, to guide the FIDO robotic rover through large-scale simulated Martian terrain. Their experience was similar to the training that NASA/JPL scientists underwent in preparation for the 2003 Mars mission. Lessons they learned were employed in the training of the Student Astronauts.

Student Astronauts

Red Rover Goes to Mars marked the first time that students were invited to compete for the opportunity to work inside mission operations while a robotic planetary mission is underway. The selected group of students—designated Student Astronauts—competed for the opportunity through an international essay contest. In mission operations, the Student Astronauts analyzed Mars Exploration Rover mission images and data as they were returned to Earth from the spacecraft. The students also communicated to the world about the images and about life inside mission operations through online journals. Each Student Astronaut spent approximately one week in mission operations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and were among the first to see new images from Mars. In order to apply for the opportunity, students had to submit an application that included an essay explaining how they would use the Mars Exploration Rovers to explore Mars for two days.

The DVD

Each of the two Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft carried a DVD produced by The Planetary Society in conjunction with Visionary Products Inc., along with hardware and labor donations from Plasmon OMS. The DVDs carried the names of millions of people who signed up through NASA’s Send Your Name to Mars opportunity. Its engaging design includes: the “Astrobot” LEGO® minifigure representation in the middle; magnets to collect dust; colors to study color appearance under a Martian sky; and LEGO brick representations to engage kids. Also printed on the DVDs are encoded passwords. Once deciphered from study of the first images transmitted from Mars, the passwords can be used to access additional information.

The Astrobot Diaries

A new breed of explorer is on board the two Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft -- Astrobots Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust are part of The Planetary Society Astrobot Corps. Biff and Sandy are representations of the world-famous LEGO minifigure suited up for space. They appear on each of the DVDs on the Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft. Their job: tell their stories to the world through a series of entertaining, fun, but entirely fact-based, online communications. From launch, through cruise, to landing and exploring the Martian surface, Biff and Sandy told us about what it’s like to go to Mars.

Mars Stations

Beginning in June 2003, the world's public was invited to simulate the challenge and excitement of exploring another world using a remotely operated robotic vehicle at The Planetary Society’s Mars Stations. Each Mars Station is a diorama simulating the appearance of a different location on Mars. Through a Web interface, visitors are able to guide a LEGO robot carrying a Web camera through the Mars environment, exploring unknown territory through the robot’s eyes, just as mission scientists explore the surface of Mars.

Red Rover, Red Rover and Exploration Mars

The Planetary Society’s Red Rover, Red Rover project is a LEGO Educational Division product suitable for all ages that allows classrooms to construct their own Mars rovers out of LEGO bricks and guide them through simulated Mars environments that they design and build themselves. Students can also operate rovers built by other classes over an Internet connection, simulating the teleoperation of robotic rovers in real Mars exploration missions. Exploration Mars is a LEGO consumer product similar to Red Rover, Red Rover that allows families to simulate the exploration of the Red Planet in their homes.