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Projects: Red Rover Goes to Mars

Student Navigators Train with the Best

by Emily Stewart Lakdawalla

Click to enlarge > The Student Navigators The Student Navigators meet the Field Integrated Design and Operations (FIDO) rover for the first time. From the left: Shaleen Harlalka, Bhushan Mahadik, Avinash Chandrashekar, Kimberly DeRose, Kevin Hou, Jacqueline Hayes, Paul Bonato, and Daniel Hermanowicz. Credit: The Planetary Society

The following article is reprinted from the May/June 2002 issue of The Planetary Report.

On February 12, 2002, a team of eight bright minds assembled in a laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for a challenging task. Their mission: to simulate two days of exploring Mars with an advanced prototype robotic exploration vehicle.

These weren't just any rover engineers--they were the Red Rover Goes to Mars Student Navigators, kids age 11 to 17 selected from thousands of applicants by The Planetary Society last March. The Navigators had devoted all of the previous year training and studying for this exciting opportunity.

The Planetary Society, with funding from the LEGO Company, conducted an international competition to select the student team. Applicants submitted journals describing how they would use a Sojourner-type rover to explore a hypothetical site on Mars. Thousands of students from more than 40 counties participated.

The winning Student Navigators were Avinash Chandrashekar, 12, of India; Bhushan Mahadik, 15, of India; Daniel Hermanowicz, 11, of Poland; Jacqueline Hayes, 17, of Australia; Kevin Hou, 13, of the United States; Kimberly DeRose, 15, of the United States; Paul Bonato, 17, of Australia; and Shaleen Harlalka, 17, of India.

Working with JPL Engineers and Scientists

The Navigators were part of a core operations team that also included engineers in the JPL Robotics Lab and several Planetary Society staff. The team, led by JPL's Robert Anderson, a scientist for the Mars Exploration Rover mission, operated the Field Integrated Design and Operations (FIDO) rover.

Click to enlarge > The Student Navigators explore the Mars Yard at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with the help of the FIDO rover's five pairs of cameras from JPL's Planetary Robotics Laboratory. Images taken by FIDO's paired cameras can be displayed as 3-D anaglyphs, so scientists can use red-blue glasses to view FIDO's world in three dimensions. Just as with a real Mars mission, the Student Navigators had to glean what information they could from the rover's instruments, pick targets for further scientific investigation, and develop a command sequence to instruct FIDO through one full sol, or Martian day, of activity -- all without actually seeing the rover, located in JPL's Mars Yard. The FIDO engineers then sent the command sequence to the rover, and the students had to wait, without watching the rover, to see if the sequence worked as they had planned. To determine whether or not they'd been successful, the students examined the data FIDO returned after executing the entire command sequence. Credit: The Planetary Society

Click to enlarge > Student Navigators Paul Bonato and Shaleen Harlalka discuss what they learned from the FIDO activity with mission manager Robert Anderson as FIDO rover engineers Ashitey Trebi-Ollenu and Edward Tunstel look on. According to Anderson, working with the students was not much different from working with professional scientists, except that the students tended to be more ambitious and willing to take risks with the rover. It was Trebi-Ollenu and Tunstel who helped the students avoid such risks. The JPL participants were impressed with the Student Navigators' knowledge and enthusiasm as well as the amazing speed at which they took to using FIDO's mission operations software. Credit: The Planetary Society

Click to enlarge > FIDO's instrument arm is deployed to examine the small rock in front of it in the Mars Yard at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This rock appeared much larger to the Student Navigators, who saw it through the paired hazard cameras visible at the front of the rover. Credit: The Planetary Society

Click to enlarge > The Mars Yard, through FIDO's "eyes." Credit: JPL / NASA

Click to enlarge > The FIDO rover backs away from the trench it dug with its left front wheel in the soft sand of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Yard. Credit: The Planetary Society

Click to enlarge > The Student Navigators' day would not have been complete without a "test" of the FIDO rover's hazard avoidance cameras... Credit: JPL / NASA

The exercise was very similar to the training that actual mission scientists have undergone in preparation for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Upon their arrival at the lab, the Navigators examined image data already taken by FIDO on its first simulated sol, or Martian day, of operation. They could not see FIDO, located several hundred yards away in JPL's outdoor Mars Yard, nor would they until the end of the day's activities; their only information came from the rover's instruments.

The Navigators split into two teams to study the images and pick targets for a trenching operation. In trenching, the rover is used as a digging tool: it locks five of its six wheels and slowly rotates the sixth backward so that it scoops dirt into a pile in front of the wheel. When the rover backs up, it exposes subsurface soil in the resulting hole.

After each team picked its favorite trenching site, a hot debate between the two teams ensued about the scientific merits and safety of traversing to each location--with FIDO team members Edward Tunstel and Ashitey Trebi-Ollenu interjecting cautions about the safety and feasibility of the Navigators' proposals.

Finally, the Navigators reached consensus on which site to explore. They then developed a sequence, or list of instructions, to send to the rover, with help from Rover operations engineer Mark Powell. The sequence took advantage of several "targets of opportunity" near the rover. The Navigators proposed having FIDO's cameras, spectrometer, and microscopic imager take images and measurements of nearby rocks before the rover moved to the trenching site. This is good practice, because if there is a mechanical failure as the rover moves or if the rover's onboard computers detect a hazard, it will still gather some data from that sol of activity.

As often happens with remote rover operations, the science activities had mixed success: FIDO took many images and spectra, successfully traveled to the trenching site, and dug a hole, but the microscopic imager captured an unfocused image of its intended target. Still, the JPL staff were very impressed with the Navigators: "They did as well as, if not better than, the real scientists," Anderson remarked. "It's very difficult, because you have to bring together what the science team wants with what the engineering constraints are."

An Empowering Opportunity

The event was a rewarding opportunity for all involved. For lead FIDO systems engineer Edward Tunstel, "the enthusiasm of the Student Navigators was instant validation that what the FIDO team does is 'cool'!" For the Navigators, their radiant expressions showed how excited they were about the opportunity.

The day after the FIDO activity, the Navigators responded to questions from more than 100 Los Angeles-area students who turned out at a student press conference held at the California Science Center. The conference panel consisted of the Student Navigators, Edward Tunstel, and Bill Nye. Nye also delivered a rousing speech to the gathered students about why exploring Mars is "cool": the first Mars astronauts will likely come from the ranks of today's children, and "the discoveries that you make may change human history."

The conference showed that the effects of the Student Navigator Event will be long lasting. One local student asked the Navigators what they thought they had contributed to science by participating in the activity. Bhushan and Shaleen both expressed their intentions to become space scientists or engineers. Jacqui said that the opportunity gave her a vision of her future as a scientist, which she had not before imagined for herself. Kim expressed hope that international collaboration on space exploration projects--simulated or real--were "bigger than war" and, as such, could be a vehicle for international peace.

Emily Stewart Lakdawalla is The Planetary Society's science and technology coordinator.

Thanks to the LEGO Company, the Red Rover Goes to Mars National Centers, the JPL Mars Program, the entire FIDO team, the California Science Center, Witold and Carolina Sokolowski, and Charles Lindgren for making the Student Navigator event such a success!