2012

Curiosity Rover

The request seems simple enough: “Let’s put a rover on Mars!” But the instant the request is made, the engineering problems start piling up. The fact that multiple rovers and robots have made it to Mars and sent back impressive amounts of imagery and data is testimony to the engineering abilities we have available as a modern society.

Think about all of the problems faced by engineers employed by the Mars Science Laboratory. They had to design a rover for frigid temperatures of -100°F (-73°C) or less. The rover also needed power. So Curiosity is nuclear powered in the form of a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Heat from 11 pounds (5 kg) of decaying plutonium turns into electricity, and the heat also keeps the rover warm.

The rover needed a communication system, even though Mars can be 250 million miles away. Also, both Earth and Mars are rotating. On Earth, there are huge antennas for the Deep Space Network positioned so that, wherever the Earth is in its rotation, one of the antennas can see Mars. If the rover is on a part of Mars facing Earth, it can talk directly to a DSN antenna. But it is easier to communicate with satellites we’ve positioned to orbit Mars when they pass overhead, and the satellite communicates with Earth.

There was also the problem of autonomy. It might take 10 minutes for a message to get to Mars and back because of the incredible distances. So the rover must do many things using its own onboard intelligence.

And just getting to Mars and landing was a problem. The rover had to get into Earth orbit, then spend months flying to Mars, then get into Mars orbit, then descend and land. Why not just open a big parachute for the landing? Because the Mars atmosphere is so thin. So there are retro-rockets that have to fire during descent, all autonomously, to place the rover on level ground.

Everything is difficult, down to the little lab that performs chemical analysis after scooping up soil. Yet the Curiosity rover successfully landed in 2012 and deployed in 2013 and is able to do science on a completely different planet.

SEE ALSO Space Satellite (1957), Lunar Rover (1971), Mars Colony (c. 2030).

This artist concept features NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot for investigating Mars’s past or present ability to sustain microbial life.