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Lunokhod 1A Crashing During A Failed Start To The Moon. Sojourner Was The First Rover To

The passage discusses the history and purpose of Mars rovers. Mars rovers are automated vehicles that propel themselves across the surface of Mars to determine if life exists, examine the climate and geology, and prepare for human exploration. Challenges include enduring extreme temperatures, pressure, dust, and radiation. Past rovers include Sojourner in 1996 and Spirit and Opportunity in 2003-2004. Opportunity is still functioning and found evidence of past water. Curiosity launched in 2011 and is also still active. Future rovers include ExoMars in 2018 to search for signs of life.

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32 views

Lunokhod 1A Crashing During A Failed Start To The Moon. Sojourner Was The First Rover To

The passage discusses the history and purpose of Mars rovers. Mars rovers are automated vehicles that propel themselves across the surface of Mars to determine if life exists, examine the climate and geology, and prepare for human exploration. Challenges include enduring extreme temperatures, pressure, dust, and radiation. Past rovers include Sojourner in 1996 and Spirit and Opportunity in 2003-2004. Opportunity is still functioning and found evidence of past water. Curiosity launched in 2011 and is also still active. Future rovers include ExoMars in 2018 to search for signs of life.

Uploaded by

Zeriaon
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ms.

Tabangcora Science 8 Period 4

Jenna Shih Mars Rover Essay October 9, 2013

The Mars Rover is an automated motor vehicle which can propel itself along the surface of Mars upon landing. The primary goals of the rover are to determine whether there is life on Mars, examine the climate and geology of Mars, and help prepare us for human exploration. There are several designs of the Mars Rover, each one yielding varying degrees of success. The conditions on Mars make some demands for the rover designs. The rovers have to be capable of enduring high levels of acceleration, extreme temperatures and pressure, dust, corrosion, and cosmic rays, and must remain functional without repair for a certain period of time. The rovers are usually attached to the spacecraft, so devices for removing the connections are installed. Because the speed at which radio signals travel is too slow for real-time communication, the rovers can function autonomously and require little human input. Attempts at launching rovers date back to as early as 1969, with the Soviet rover Lunokhod 1A crashing during a failed start to the Moon. Sojourner was the first rover to successfully reach another planetMarsand was launched as an accompaniment to the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1996. Spirit and Opportunity were launched as part of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, although Spirit is no longer functioning. Mars has become something akin to a rover graveyard, with about five missing-in-action rovers on the surface. Currently, the only functioning rovers on Mars are Opportunity and Curiosity. Opportunity was launched on July 7, 2003, and landed on January 25, 2004.

Opportunity has yielded substantial evidence that holds clues to past water activity on the planet, along with astronomical and atmospheric data. Curiosity, launched on November 26, 2011, landed on August 6, 2012. ESA (European Space Agency), collaborating with the Russian Federal Space Agency, intend to launch the ExoMars rover, with its main objective being to search for signs of Martian life, past or present. The rover itself is currently in the prototyping phase, and is set to begin a 218-sol mission in 2018.

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