Technicians bring the engineering version of the Perseverance Mars rover to Mars Yard as part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Did you know NASAIs next Mars Is the rover almost the same brother for testing on Earth? Even better, he is the first to roll through the iconic Martian landscape.
As NASA’s Mars rover Persona Varens passes into space towards the red planet, six-wheeler twins are ready to orbit the Earth here.
The full-scale engineering version of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover – equipped with wheels, cameras and powerful computers to help it operate autonomously – has just moved into its garage house at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The Rover Model Dale passed its first driving test in a relatively warehouse-like assembly room JPL On September 1, 2020. Engineers expect to take it to Mars Yard next week, where a field of red dirt filled with rocks and other obstacles mimics the surface of the Red Planet.
A garage in front of Mars Yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California now houses a full-scale engineering model of NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
“Persuasion’s mobility team can’t wait to finally get our test rover out,” said Anais Zarifian, JPL’s bed engineer for mobility testing. “This is a test robot that comes closest to the actual station operations on Mars – with wheels, eyes and brains all – so it will be especially fun to work with this rover.”
Wait, why do we need twins?
Don’t fly to Mars with a firm mechanic. To avoid as many unwanted issues as possible after the rover lands on February 18, 2021, the team requires the rover of this Earth Bound Vehicle System Test Bed (VSTB) to transmit commands before the hardware and software software can continue operating. How it will work before. Mars. This rover model Dell will be especially useful for completing a full set of software software tests so that the team can send patches when perversion comes to Mars or after it lands.
Engineers have tested the Earth Bound pair of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover for the first time in a warehouse-like assembly room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
And just as Khant has a proper name – who works hard to get a rover to Mars in the midst of an epidemic – his twin name is also: Ptimism. While Optimism is an acronym for Alpacional Perseverance Twin for the integration of mechanisms and instruments sent to Mars, the name also approves of the mantra of the team that spent two years planning and assembling it.
“No optimism is allowed,” said Matt Stumbo, VSTB Rover’s leading member of the test bed team. “That’s why we named the test rover TTimism to remind us of the work we have to do to fully test the system.” Our job is to find problems, not just Hope Activities will work. As we work on issues with Tpitism, we gain the ability and confidence to work on Mars. “
Almost identical
The ptimism is almost identical to speed: it is the same size, has the same mobility system and top driving speed (0.094 mph, or 0.15 kph), and shows the same distinctive “head”, known as a remote sensing mast. After the second phase of the building at the beginning of the new year, it will have a complete suite of science instruments, cameras and computer “brain” perception, plus its unique system for collecting rock and soil samples.
But while Tpitism lives in JPL, there are also some earthly differences. For one thing, when power is obtained from a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (a type of atomic battery that has reliably operated space missions since the 1960s), the Optimism features a umbilical cord that can be plugged in for electrical power. It also provides a cord Ethernet connection, which commands the mission team to send and receive engineering data back from Optimism without having to install a radio persuasive use radio for communication. Mars comes with a personal heating system to keep it warm in the harsh atmosphere, while Optimism relies on a cooling system for hot Southern California summer management.
Technicians move the engineered version of the Perseverance Mars rover to its new home in the Mars Yard, part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Welcome to the family
TPTism is not JPL’s only VSTB rover. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, which has been searching for the Red Planet since landing in 2012, has twins named MAGGI (Mars Automated Giant Gizmo for Integrated Engineering). Maggie Curiosity is helping the team with a strategy to drive through particularly challenging terrain and drilling rocks.
Optimism and Maggie will live together in the Mars Yard, giving JPL engineers a two-car garage for the first time.
“The missions that are operating need highly reliable replicas to test their systems,” Stumbo said. “Curiosity Mission has learned a lesson from MAGGIE that was impossible to learn in any other way. Now that we have Optimism, we have a personal mission on Mars to teach them what they need for success. ”
The Perseverance Rover’s astrobiology mission will search for signs of ancient microbial life. It will also feature the planet’s climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the red planet, and will be the first planetary eclipse to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust). Subsequent missions, currently in collaboration with the European Space Agency, will send a spacecraft to Mars under consideration by NASA, so that these cached samples can be collected from the surface and analyzed in depth on Earth.
The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes a mission to the moon as a way to prepare for the red planet’s human exploration. Accused with astronauts returning to the moon by 2024, NASA will establish a continuous presence on and around the moon by 2028 through NASA’s Artemis lunar research plans.
Operates and manages JPL, Perseverance and Curiosity rovers for NASA operated by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
