2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers have installed suspension and wheels on the new rover, which is due to travel to Mars in July-August 2020, according to a posting on the laboratory's website.
The yet unnamed six-wheeled rover of the Mars 2020 mission is based on the design of the Curiosity rover, which has been successfully operating on Mars since August 2012. He, like its predecessor, will land on the planet using a "sky crane", it has a similar design of wheels and suspension, but it will be equipped with more advanced scientific instruments. In particular, the new rover will have 23 cameras with better resolution and color rendering, it will be equipped with a more advanced drill, which will be able to receive rock cores (the Curiosity drill can only receive powder samples). The cores are planned to be collected at one point, from where they will have to be picked up by the apparatus of the future Mars mission to deliver samples to Earth. On the voyages, the rover will accompany the first Martian drone.
The scientific tasks of Mars 2020 include the search for traces of life on the planet - before that, Martian missions were focused mainly on finding water and niches potentially suitable for life in the past or present. In preparation for future manned expeditions, the device will conduct an experiment to obtain oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.
Currently, experts are assembling the rover. A week ago, on June 13, they installed suspension rods and wheels on the starboard side of the rover, and today on the left. Suspension bars (โlegs,โ as they are called in the laboratory) are titanium alloy tubes that are manufactured using the same technology as frames for the most advanced bicycles. The rocker-bogie suspension allows the vehicle to overcome obstacles twice the diameter of a wheel, while maintaining contact of all wheels with the surface. In addition, this suspension effectively transfers weight between the sides of the vehicle when overcoming large obstacles.
The rover's six wheels, 52.5 cm in diameter, are made of aluminum, each with 48 lugs and its own electric motor. The front and rear wheels can also turn, allowing the rover to turn in place. The wheels that are installed on the rover now are not "combat", but exact copies. They will be removed after testing and replaced shortly before the start next year.
Over the next weeks, specialists will install a manipulator, cameras and a sample collection system on the rover for future delivery to Earth.
The rover will travel to Mars between July 17 and August 5, 2020, with a landing scheduled for February 18, 2021. The landing site is the 45-kilometer crater Jezero, which is located in the west of the Isis plain north of the equator. This is one of the most ancient regions on Mars, interesting from a geological point of view: it had a river delta. It is believed that in this area, the rover will be able to find at least five different types of rocks, including clay minerals and carbonates, which may have preserved traces of ancient Martian life.
The launch of the ExoMars-2020 mission of the European Space Agency and Roskosmos is also scheduled for 2020. Scientists will send to the Red Planet a rover named after the researcher of DNA structure Rosalind Franklin, and a Russian landing platform with instruments for monitoring climate and radiation on the planet. The landing site for these vehicles is the Oksia plateau in the northern hemisphere of Mars, not far from the equator.
