Mars Exploration Rover

Программа NASA предусматривающая высадку на поверхность Марса двух марсоходов. Апапараты должны провести исследования поверхности планеты на маршруте движения. Для этого они оборудуются набором разнообразных приборов.

Каждый марсоход будет нести идентичный набор инструментов. Среди них: панорамная камера, миниатюрный термоэмиссионный спектрометр, Мёсбауровский спектрометр, спектрометр ренгеновских и альфа частиц, микроскоп.

Spacecraft
Launch: May-July 2003
Arrival: January 2004
Science instruments: Panoramic Camera, Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer, Mossbauer Spectrometer, Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, Microscopic Imager

Overview

In 2003, two powerful new Mars rovers will be on their way to the red planet. With far greater mobility than the 1997 Mars Pathfinder rover, these robotic explorers will be able to trek up to 100 meters (about 110 yards) across the surface in a Martian day. Each rover will carry a sophisticated set of instruments that will allow it to search for evidence of liquid water that may have been present in the planet's past. The rovers will be identical to each other, but will land at different regions of Mars.

The landing for each will resemble that of the Pathfinder mission. A parachute will deploy to slow the spacecraft, rockets will fire to slow it further just before impact, and airbags will inflate to cushion the landing. Upon reaching the surface, the spacecraft will bounce about a dozen times, and could roll as far as one kilometer (0.6 miles). When it stops, the airbags will deflate and retract and the petals will open up, bringing the lander to an upright position and revealing the rover.

The landed portion of the mission features a design dramatically different from Mars Pathfinder mission. Where Pathfinder had scientific instruments on both the lander and the small Sojourner rover, these larger rovers will carry all their instruments with them. Immediately after landing, each rover will begin reconnaissance of the landing site by taking a 360-degree visible color and infrared image panorama. Then they will each leave the petal structure behind, driving off to begin exploration.

Using images and spectra taken daily from the rovers, scientists will command the vehicle to go to rock and soil targets of interest and evaluate their composition and their texture at microscopic scales. Initial targets may be close to the landing sites, but later targets can be far afield. These rovers will be able to travel almost as far in one Martian day as the Sojourner rover did over its entire lifetime.

Rocks and soils will be analyzed with a set of five instruments on each rover, and a special tool called the "RAT," or rock abrasion tool, will be used to expose fresh rock surfaces for study. Each rover has a mass of nearly 180 kilograms (about 400 pounds) and has a range of up to 100 meters (about 110 yards) per sol, or Martian day. Surface operations will last for at least 90 sols, extending to late May 2004, but could continue longer, depending on the health of the vehicles.

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