landmannnn Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 "According to Chris Draper, Astrium's ExoMars rover vehicle industrial manager, they can go literally where no rover has gone before. The prototypes have a unique intelligent navigation system which enables them to plot their own course. Such is the distance between the planets, it can take 20 minutes for an instruction sent from Earth to arrive at Mars. The delay means instant commands to change direction are not possible and so a rover must have autonomy to make decisions if, for example, it is approaching a dangerous precipice. And because the rover will make its own decisions, it can also cover more ground." Wonder how good it would be as a challenge vehicle? (650million euro's) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Wonder how good it would be as a challenge vehicle? (650million euro's) Looks like it's got portals, so it'd never work The communication delay is only an issue until we sort out quantum communications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lara Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Can't understand why they are using wheels when there are crawlers already invented that would do the job perfectly! Lara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrFrog Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Such is the distance between the planets, it can take 20 minutes for an instruction sent from Earth to arrive at Mars. Or is it double that ? It will have taken 20minutes for the video image to arrive to control centre, then 20 minutes + operator delay for the resulting command to have got back to the Rover... A lot can go wrong in 40 minutes, even at snail's pace Just makes you realise quite how complex these things are, not quite the same as a little remote control car, and that's not taking environmental conditions into account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astro_Al Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Sure its complex, but large projects like this, often publicly funded, tend to absorb man hours and funding at a disproportionate rate. Whatever the budget, it'll get used, whatever the man hours available, they'll want more. The conditions aren't so bad - lower pressure means the normally alarmingly high wind speeds are not so bad (lower dynamic pressure). Lara - probably weight and reliability. Al. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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