{"id":57681,"date":"2012-08-22T11:59:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T09:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=57681"},"modified":"2012-08-22T17:04:54","modified_gmt":"2012-08-22T15:04:54","slug":"the-tech-behind-curiosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/gadgets\/57681-the-tech-behind-curiosity.html","title":{"rendered":"The tech behind Curiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Mars rover has been in the headlines since it touched down on the Red Planet on 6 August 2012, and the technological feat has proven to capture the attention of the world.<\/p>\n

But exactly what tech has made the expedition possible, and what powers the rover across the surface of Mars?<\/p>\n

Neck and head<\/strong><\/p>\n

The neck and head (known as the \u201cmast\u201d) features seven of Curiosity\u2019s seventeen cameras.<\/p>\n

The mast cameras can be raised to provide a large viewing area and to survey the land, ensuring that the rover isn’t sent on journeys over large distances to ultimately discover nothing of interest.<\/p>\n

The MastCam can take images up to 1600 x 1200 pixels, and 10 frames per second video at 720p.<\/p>\n

The MastCam is the primary camera of observation; however there is a ChemCam (Chemistry and Camera complex) to monitor micro-imaging and infrared.<\/p>\n

Two pairs of Navcams (Navigation cameras) help capture stereoscopic 3-D imagery and guide the rover cross the terrain.<\/p>\n

Each camera has 8GB of flash memory on-board.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Curiosity’s mast cameras<\/p><\/div>\n

The rover<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the rover itself, the 900kg machine is essentially a moving laboratory.<\/p>\n

Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (built by Boeing and the Idaho National Laboratory), which is fuelled by radioactive decay being converted into electricity.<\/p>\n

A heat rejection system (HRS) keeps the rover at optimum temperature by warming and cooling integral components when necessary.<\/p>\n

In terms of mobility, Curiosity is equipped with six 50 centimetre diameter wheels.<\/p>\n

Each wheel is independently geared, making traversal over soft sand and rocks manageable.<\/p>\n

Curiosity can travel up to speeds of 90 meters per hour (0.09km\/h), but average speed is around 0.03km\/h.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Curiosity<\/p><\/div>\n

Computers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Curiosity features two identical on-board computers called Rover Compute Element (RCE).<\/p>\n

The computers are radiation-hardened, allowing them to survive the extreme radiation from space.<\/p>\n

Each computer’s memory includes 256kB of EEPROM, 256MB of DRAM, and 2GB of flash memory.<\/p>\n

Communication<\/strong><\/p>\n

An X band transmitter and receiver and a UHF Electra-Lite software-defined radio are used to communicate with Mars orbiters.<\/p>\n

Curiosity can communicate with Earth directly at speeds up to 32kbit\/s, but the transferred data will go through the orbiters at 2Mbit\/s and 256kbit\/s on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Odyssey orbiter respectively.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n
Source: NASA.gov <\/a><\/h5>\n

Related articles:<\/h3>\n

A panoramic view of Mars<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

NASA Mars rover takes aim<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

NASA Mars rover: what\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

NASA Mars rover helped by SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s take a look at the technology powering NASA\u2019s robotic explorer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340900,"featured_media":57683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[14389,14603,35,14175,761,14601,14605],"class_list":["post-57681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","tag-curiosity","tag-curiosity-details","tag-headline","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-nasa-mars-rover","tag-red-planet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340900"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57843,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57681\/revisions\/57843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}