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Projects: Red Rover Goes to Mars

We Make It Happen! Red Rover Goes to Mars

by Bruce Betts

The following article is reprinted from the May/June 2003 issue of The Planetary Report. We Make It Happen! is a regular feature of The Planetary Report, written by Planetary Society Director of Projects Bruce Betts. Through it, we keep our members updated on our projects—what we are doing together to make space exploration happen.  The Planetary Society, with its members—and because of its members—does a lot of amazing things. These include our many SETI ventures, Mars exploration projects like Red Rover Goes to Mars and the Mars Microphone, extra-solar planet activities, near-Earth object programs, and, of course, our groundbreaking solar sail mission.

At this time, when the buzz is all about the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) launches, I am focusing on our involvement with the MER mission, namely our Red Rover Goes to Mars (RRGTM) project. RRGTM is one of our largest projects, and one of our most exciting. Our members facilitate it, as does our partnership with the LEGO Company.

Our connection with MER represents unprecedented public involvement with a NASA mission. The two MER spacecraft, scheduled to launch in early and late June 2003, are being sent to serve as robotic geologists on Mars. Like the science instruments aboard MER, RRGTM is an officially selected part of the mission. For more on RRGTM’s history and diverse aspects, see the November/December 2002 issue of The Planetary Report. In addition, our project website is loaded with information about RRGTM and the MER mission. Here I mention some key updates.

Millions of Names (Including Yours) Head for Mars

Click to enlarge > The Red Rover Goes to Mars spacecraft DVD assembly Credit: The Planetary Society

Click to enlarge > The Planetary Society’s mini-DVD (above) will hitch a ride to the Red Planet on board each Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft. The image shows one of the DVDs mounted in position on one of the spacecraft’s lander petals. After landing on Mars, the rover will capture an image of the DVD before it drives away from the lander. Each DVD carries the names of The Planetary Society’s members. Each also features engaging designs leading to other activities. These include the "astrobot" LEGO mini-figure representation in the middle, magnets to collect dust, colors to study color appearance under a Martian sky, LEGO brick representations to engage kids, and secret codes around the outside to be decoded from images on Mars. The DVD will remain on the lander as a time capsule for a future generation. Credit: Joel Rademacher, JPL

The Planetary Society provided a mini-DVD and associated mounting hardware to each spacecraft. These will carry to the surface of Mars the names of nearly four million people who submitted their names to fly to Mars. The list includes the names of all members of The Planetary Society as of November 2002.

The task seems simple: provide a DVD and mounting hardware to the mission. In reality, developing, producing, and testing a mini-DVD and assembly that can survive the rigors of space and a violent landing is actually nontrivial, as is creating the paperwork trail required by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA. The assembly had to go through the same expensive testing as any other instrument, including violent shaking and shocks. It also had to withstand bake outs at high temperatures that are part of NASA’s planetary protection requirements. These bake outs are intended to kill any tiny critters on the spacecraft so we don’t “forward contaminate” Mars with life when we’re looking for signs of life. A normal DVD wouldn’t survive, so we used a silica glass mini-DVD, on which a company in France named Plasmon specially etched the data.

Our original DVD design also had to change several times to accommodate the violent shocks and bake out. Visionary Products, Inc. built the DVD assemblies for us and produced the reams of backup documents required by JPL for every item of spacecraft hardware, even a humble DVD and assembly. The tale of this simple piece of spacecraft hardware reminds us that space exploration is neither easy nor simple, but it is rewarding.

Astrobots: Martian Explorers Tell Their Tales

Wouldn’t it be great to learn about spacecraft missions in a fun way that makes you laugh? That’s what we thought. A new breed of explorer is on board the two MER spacecraft—astrobots Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust (winning contest names from Cindy Rossetto of Grants Pass, Oregon), who are part of The Planetary Society Astrobot Corps. Biff and Sandy are LEGO mini-figure representations suited up for space. They appear on each of the DVDs on the MER spacecraft. Their job: tell their stories to the world through a series of entertaining online communications between themselves and the ground. Come follow these first-person accounts of a planetary mission online. Join laid-back Biff, the last-minute replacement who would rather be home watching Junkyard Wars, and uptight Sandy, the knower of all, who’d rather be nowhere else, except maybe correcting grammar or taking a test.

Student Astronauts

The Planetary Society is a very real player in the MER mission in a different way. We will have a team inside mission operations doing real mission tasks. Twenty talented international students, called Student Astronauts, will go to JPL over the course of the missions and work inside mission operations in teams of two. These student pairs will work with the sundial educational experiment and the magnet team, and they will attend all key meetings. Perhaps more important, they will communicate their experiences to members and the world, explaining what it is really like to be inside operations.

Students from more than 25 countries competed for the opportunity to be part of this prestigious team through a challenging essay contest. We’ve announced our finalists on our website, and in the fall we will announce the actual Student Astronauts who will go to JPL. This type of individual, hands-on competition with international public involvement is unprecedented in a NASA mission. It’s going to be fun, so stay tuned.

“Younique”

Through such tools and programs as DVD hardware, student astronauts, and our official selection, we are involved in a Mars mission in ways no citizen group ever has been. In addition, our DVD hardware is only the second privately funded hardware on a NASA planetary mission (our Mars Microphone was the first). We’re taking what is inherently a fun and interesting activity and directly involving our members and the public in the fun and excitement. So when people ask you “what’s new,” tell them that your name and your efforts are going to Mars.