Mars rover
hideA Mars rover is a spacecraft which propels itself across the surface of Mars after landing.
Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to weather winter months and they can advance the knowledge of how to perform very remote robotic vehicle control.
Their advantages over orbiting spacecraft are that they can make observations to a microscopic level and can conduct physical experimentation. Disadvantages of rovers compared to orbiters are the higher chance of failure, due to landing and other risks, and that they are limited to a small area around a landing site which itself is only approximately anticipated.
There have been three successful Mars rovers, all of which were robotically operated. (There have also been two successful non-Martian robotic rovers: in the 1970s the USSR sent two Lunokhod rovers to the Moon.)
For more information about Mars rover, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with mars rovers
Mars Odyssey Orbiter Puts Itself Into Safe Standby
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 01, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter put itself into a safe standby mode on Saturday, Nov. 28, and the team operating the spacecraft has begun implementing careful steps designed to resume Odyssey's ...
Rover Spirit: Another Stall of Right-Rear Wheel Ends Drive
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 02, 2009 |
2.5 / 5 (2) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Spirit's right-rear wheel stalled again on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28, 2009) during the first step of a two-step extrication maneuver.
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Texas A&M prof to predict weather on Mars
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 04, 2009 |
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Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and ...
Sandtrapped Rover Makes a Big Discovery
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 03, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (37) |
12
Homer's Iliad tells the story of Troy, a city besieged by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Today, a lone robot sits besieged in the sands of Troy while engineers and scientists plot its escape.
NASA to Begin Attempts to Free Sand-Trapped Mars Rover
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 12, 2009 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA will begin transmitting commands to its Mars exploration rover Spirit on Monday as part of an escape plan to free the venerable robot from its Martian sand trap.
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