What is the Latest Rover on Mars and Who Helped Make it Happen?

In summary: Mars... survived...In summary, the NASA rover Curiosity landed on Mars on August 5th, 2012 and has been exploring the planet since. The latest and greatest rover on Mars was used to bring the rover to the red planet and it seems to be doing well so far. Congratulations to everyone involved!
  • #1
Drakkith
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7 minutes of terror turned into 7 minutes of triumph! We have the latest and greatest rover on Mars as we speak! Congratulations to NASA and everyone else that had a hand in building and delivering Curiosity to the red planet!

Read more here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120805c.html
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org
  • #2
Yay! So far, so good. :approve:
 
  • #3
Did it kill a cat when it landed?
 
  • #4
Danger said:
Did it kill a cat when it landed?

Your sense of humor is like my roomates, more dangerous to my health than curiosity is to a cat!
 
  • #5
Drakkith said:
Your sense of humor is like my roomates, more dangerous to my health than curiosity is to a cat!

I don't know whether that's good or bad, but... thanks... I think... :uhh:
 
  • #7
An amazing feat of engineering!
There are already some black/white photos published here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/
Mars Science Laboratory homepage: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
NASA said there will be color photos and movies coming later in the gallery. I hope the mission will be a continued success. :smile:

Image: Looking Back at the Crater Rim. (link)
Crisp-2-br2.jpg
 
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  • #9
I wonder, what colour is sky going to have in images from other cameras? Red or blue?

And if I was suddenly teleported without any suit on the surface of the Mars, what colour would I see, before I died horrible death?

Google doesn't find any reliable answer to this.
 
  • #10
Alesak said:
I wonder, what colour is sky going to have in images from other cameras? Red or blue?

And if I was suddenly teleported without any suit on the surface of the Mars, what colour would I see, before I died horrible death?

Google doesn't find any reliable answer to this.

The pictures from the wikipedia article on Mars vary in color from bluish, to reddish, to a dirty brown. I'd guess it depends on the quality of the air at the time. Lots of dust in the air would make it reddish-brown probably.
 
  • #11
iPhone processor way outguns Mars Curiosity rover's | Crave - CNET
What Powers the Mars Curiosity Rover? | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
Curiosity rover - Wikipedia
  • CPU: 200-MHz RAD750 (2001), a radiation-hardened version of the PowerPC 750 (1997)
  • EEPROM: 256 KB
  • RAM: 256 MB
  • Flash: 2 GB
EEPROM = electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (ROM)

Rather behind a typical present-day smartphone, but then again, most smartphones aren't designed to survive big ionizing-radiation does.

Spirit and Opportunity have (Mars Exploration Rover):
  • CPU: 20-MHz RAD6000 (1994), a rad-hard version of IBM's RISC Single Chip, a version of POWER1 (RS/6000: 1990), much like PowerPC 601
  • EEPROM: 3 MB
  • RAM: 128 MB
  • Flash: 256 MB

Numerous other spacecraft have flown the RAD6000 and RAD750 chips.

The RAD750 can survive temperatures between -55 C and 125 C, and ionizing-radiation dose of a million rads (10,000 gray). More ordinary chips can survive only a thousand rads, and that is a lethal whole-body dose for us (Rad (unit)).Curiosity, the other three Mars rovers, and numerous other spacecraft have run the VxWorks proprietary real-time operating system. I don't think that their designers would make them Windows, for obvious reasons.
 
  • #12
Alesak said:
I wonder, what colour is sky going to have in images from other cameras? Red or blue?

The engineers handling the first color photographs from the first Viking landing made a mistake in calibrating the colors because they initially assumed the sky would be blue like it is on Earth. A day or so later they realized and corrected the mistake. On Mars, sunsets and sunrises are blueish while the sky appears reddish during the day (discounting the possible effects of dust in the air).
 
  • #13
PhilDSP said:
The engineers handling the first color photographs from the first Viking landing made a mistake in calibrating the colors because they initially assumed the sky would be blue like it is on Earth. A day or so later they realized and corrected the mistake. On Mars, sunsets and sunrises are blueish while the sky appears reddish during the day (discounting the possible effects of dust in the air).

Thanks, I've found this, which I think settles it.

The NASA-hiding-true-colors-of-Mars conspiracy was one of the funniest conspiracies.
 
  • #14
About Mars colors: http://discovermagazine.com/2004/dec/color-of-mars/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C= Is Mars reddish or yellowish?
 
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  • #16
Has anyone seen the picture with the blob in the background? Than curiosity took another picture in the same direction, and it was gone.
 
  • #17
http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/cee/08a/248/resized/history-channel-alien-guy-meme-generator-blob-in-the-background-aliens-bf2a89.jpg [Broken]

On a more serious note, the mystery was solved.
 
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  • #18
Heat shield striking the ground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crnhjnpgTTo

Curiosity landing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb8RPbLU9cU
 
  • #21

What is the Latest Rover on Mars?

The latest rover on Mars is the Perseverance rover, also known as Mars 2020. It was launched on July 30, 2020, and landed on Mars on February 18, 2021.

Who Helped Make it Happen?

The Perseverance rover was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with various partners, including international space agencies and private companies.

What is the Purpose of the Perseverance Rover Mission?

The main goal of the Perseverance rover mission is to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. It will also collect and store samples of Martian rocks and soil for future return to Earth.

How is the Perseverance Rover Different from Previous Mars Rovers?

The Perseverance rover is the most advanced and sophisticated rover ever sent to Mars. It has upgraded cameras and scientific instruments, as well as a new terrain navigation system and a sample caching system.

What Technologies and Instruments Does the Perseverance Rover Have?

The Perseverance rover is equipped with a variety of instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, and a laser that can analyze the chemical composition of rocks. It also has advanced technologies such as a helicopter drone, a robotic arm, and a drill for collecting samples.

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