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Mars NASA

NASA Showcases Its New Mars Rover, Calls It Precursor to Humans on Mars (sciencealert.com) 71

Posted by EditorDavid from the company-for-Curiosity dept.
"The Mars 2020 rover, which sets off for the Red Planet next year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA scientists said Friday as they unveiled the vehicle."

An anonymous reader quotes Agence France-Presse: The rover has been constructed in a large, sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, where its driving equipment was given its first successful test last week. Shown to invited journalists on Friday, it is scheduled to leave Earth in July 2020 from Florida's Cape Canaveral, becoming the fifth U.S. rover to land on Mars seven months later in February [of 2021].

"It's designed to seek the signs of life, so we're carrying a number of different instruments that will help us understand the geological and chemical context on the surface of Mars," deputy mission leader Matt Wallace told AFP. Among the devices on board the rover are 23 cameras, two "ears" that will allow it to listen to Martian winds, and lasers used for chemical analysis... Fuelled by a miniature nuclear reactor, Mars 2020 has seven-foot-long (two metre) articulated arms and a drill to crack open rock samples in locations scientists identify as potentially suitable for life. "What we're looking for is ancient microbial life -- we're talking about billions of years ago on Mars, when the planet was much more Earth-like," said Wallace...

The Mars 2020 mission also carries hopes for an even more ambitious target -- a human mission to Mars. "I think of it, really, as the first human precursor mission to Mars," said Wallace. Equipment on board "will allow us to make oxygen" that could one day be used both for humans to breathe, and to fuel the departure from Mars "for the return trip."
NASA has uploaded footage of the rover's first test drive.
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NASA Showcases Its New Mars Rover, Calls It Precursor to Humans on Mars More

NASA Showcases Its New Mars Rover, Calls It Precursor to Humans on Mars

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  • Must.know.how. (Score:5, Informative)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @08:12AM (#59570076) Journal

    In case you were nerding out about this, like me.

    MOXIE (Mars OXygen In situ resource utilization Experiment) is an exploration technology experiment that will produce a small amount of pure oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in a process called solid oxide electrolysis.

    Apparently, it's a 1% scale model with a goal of producing "22 g of oxygen (O2) per hour with >99.6% purity during 50 sols (Martian days)."

    • Re:Must.know.how. (Score:4)

      by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @09:02AM (#59570162)

      This is much cooler than "yet another rover". Mining a resource, making use of it. Please, rinse and repeat this.

      • Re:Must.know.how. (Score:5, Informative)

        by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @11:23AM (#59570736)

        This is much cooler than "yet another rover". Mining a resource, making use of it. Please, rinse and repeat this.

        Yeah, it's pretty cool. And they didn't even mention the helicopter. [nasa.gov]

        • That's really sweet. If past history with developments for space programs are any experience, we should be seeing some improvements for Earth-bound rotorcraft shortly.

          The altitude record for a helicopter flying here on Earth is about 40,000 feet. The atmosphere of Mars is only one percent that of Earth, so when our helicopter is on the Martian surface, it’s already at the Earth equivalent of 100,000 feet up," said Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL. "To make it fly at that low atmospheric density, we had to scrutinize everything, make it as light as possible while being as strong and as powerful as it can possibly be.

    • Or, if you *must* snob out with inkhorn terms from dead languages, at least go all the way, and use "surya" from Sanskrit, the oldest dead language, or even better, the hieroglyph for Ra (Egyptian) or K'in (Mayan) [wikimedia.org].

      Or if you lack unicode, find the most incomprehensible long string of seldom-used consonans and re-used other ASCII symbols in the most unexpected order that can be argued to resemble the latinization of a word in a dead language. Something like "xl'lR4&krfkhl'klt'oqhcrh't".

      That'll get you ALL

    • Re:Must.know.how. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @02:43PM (#59571420)
      Converting CO2 to O2 is relatively easy. There are lots of ways to do it. The catch is the energy cost. O2 sits high on the chemical potential energy scale [wikipedia.org]. That's why it wants to react with everything - it has a lot of energy to give up. CO2 sits very low on the same scale. That's why it's a common end product from energy production - it's the end result of extracting the energy from your original materials.

      1 mole of O2 has a Gibbs free energy of 0 Joules. 1 mole of CO2 has a Gibbs free energy of â'394.39 kJ. So the net energy difference (assuming the C is discarded as pure carbon, also 0 J) is 394.39 kJ/mol. One mole of O2 weighs 32 grams, so 22 g of O2 requires 271 kJ of energy to create. (You can decrease the energy cost if you can foist the carbon atom onto something else which has low chemical potential energy, instead of generating pure soot.) 271 kJ/hour = 75 Watts (assuming 100% conversion efficiency).

      For designing the ISS, they assumed the average human (in space) consumed 0.84 kg of O2 per day [quora.com]. Figure in Mars gravity the number would be closer to 1 kg of O2/day. Net energy cost to produce enough O2 to keep 1 person alive (assuming 100% conversion efficiency) would then be (1000 g of O2/day)*(271 kJ / 22 g of O2) = 12318 kJ = 12.3 MJ per person per day = 143 Watts. Which checks out since the average person's body heat production is right around 100 Watts.

      Multiply by 2 or 3 to account for conversion efficiency being 33%-50%, not 100%. And you're right at about a third to half a kilowatt per person to generate enough oxygen to keep them alive. That's actually pretty reasonable.

  • Follow-up tweet by Musk (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @08:31AM (#59570112)

    Shortly after this announcement was a tweet by Elon Musk revealing SpaceX's own latest Mars experiment, the Unmanned Remote Assisted Scientific Station, saying "It's about time we get URASS to Mars".

    • they could just start the reactor and save the effort of lugging all that equipment across the void.

  • At least we can be sure it won't run over any Martian snails.

    • I'm sure they can get the rovers to go faster if they wanted to. The thing is you don't want them in turbo mode blasting around the landscape considering the remote operator is working with, up to, 24 minutes of lag and there's nobody locally there to tip it back upright.

      • there's nobody locally there to tip it back upright.

        Are you telling me none of NASA's engineers ever watched Robot Wars?

  • Hyperbole much? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Monday December 30, 2019 @09:03AM (#59570170) Homepage

    NASA's rovers have been amazing in terms of their longevity and what they've done to increase our knowledge of Mars. I think everyone who has worked on them going back to Sojourner.

    After RFTA, this is really another rover which is really important, but I would think that rover that was a "Precursor" to humans on Mars, it would:
    - Be able to produce a significant amount of oxygen, the Moxie experiment (https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/instruments/moxie/) will only produce about 20 grams of oxygen each time it's run (and there's no where to store the oxygen produced). This is enough for a human to breathe for about two minutes. This is an experiment, not something that an astronaut can rely upon.
    - I would think that the rover could be used for carrying/transporting materials for when humans arrive. If it can't, then the astronauts will have to provide their own means of carting stuff around.
    - I'm sure that before any kind of building can be created, there needs for a site to be leveled, graded with all problematic rocks removed.

    I have every confidence that this new rover will exceed the base expectations put upon it and help to improve our understanding of Mars but I think saying it's a "precursor" is an exaggeration.

    • Use the rover as a cart? Do you have any idea how slow this roverâ(TM)s top speed is? It is designed for autonomous navigation. A turtle would give it a run for its money.

      • How fast do you need to go? 0.1mph works out to 8.8feet/m.

        Let's assume that the size of the human habitat is 300' on a side - that means going from corner to corner would take 48 minutes. Other than transporting people I can't see why this isn't acceptable for rocks, soil (regolith), equipment or structures - load it up, send it on its way and deal with unloading when it gets there.

        Apparently, tortoises have a top speed of 0.13mph.

    • I agree precursor is pushing it slightly but it's technically the correct term, being able to create your own fuel and oxygen to support human life even if it's just a proof of concept is an important milestone to hopefully seeing us reach another planet in my life time.

    • It is a matter of judgement or definition to decide what "precursor" might mean. Technology progresses on the shoulders of prior accomplishments, so it is all a continuum. In this case, the intention seems clear. Prior Mars landers and rovers have done science only, using their instruments to study raw nature on the Red Planet. This is the first time I can recall that there is an engineering experiment that would be used in support of human visitation or colonization. Prior rovers have had some enginee

  • Yes but only if they can get SpaceX to build it for them.
    Nothing a few billion dollars can't solve.

  • This rover is not powered by a nuclear reactor.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
      Nuclear reactors and heat generated from radioactive decay are basically the same thing, right? I mean, one slowly radiates heat while the other relies on fission.Both are very simple... wait, what?
      • Both are fission. Nuclear decay is spontaneous fission at low rates while nuclear fission reactors force sustained fission at higher rates.
        • Wrong. Fission is splitting of the atom into two roughly equal size atoms. Radioactive decay is an atom ejecting a small particle. RTGs preferably use isotopes that undergo alpha decay, because it's easy to shield against the radiation.

          • Look up up what nuclear fission [wikipedia.org] is: “In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction or a radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei.” No part of the definition relies on “equal sizes” being the end result.

    • Define nuclear reactor. No it’s not the same design of nuclear reactor used in today’s power plants because it’s impractical/impossible to rely on steam generation on Mars. It uses a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) that converts nuclear decay into heat and electricity. It has been used on other spacecraft and rovers. The fuel source is plutonium on the Mars 2020 rover.

      • A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction.

        A MMRTG does not do that. It is not a nuclear reactor. Quit displaying ignorance on the subject. An MMRTG only uses heat from natural decay, the heat from a nuclear reactor is not from nuclear decay.

        • A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction.

          First of all, I wasn't asking you. I was asking the OP to clarify what he meant. Did he mean a nuclear powered reactor or a nuclear fission reactor which is one of two different types of "nuclear reactor".

          Quit displaying ignorance on the subject.

          Second, please show me anywhere I have stated facts which are not true.

          An MMRTG only uses heat from natural decay, the heat from a nuclear reactor is not from nuclear decay.

          Third, I already posted this. Please scroll up: "It uses a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) that converts

          • An MMRTG is not a "nuclear powered reactor." That is your error. It is a thermoelectric generator, a device that converts heat into electricity with thermoelectric couples. A radioisotope TG, or RTG uses heat from radioactive decay. Still not any type of nuclear reactor nor "nuclear powered reactor".

            The USA has launched a nuclear reactor into space, look it up.

            • An MMRTG is not a "nuclear powered reactor." That is your error.

              Perhaps you should look it what nuclear power [wikipedia.org] means: "Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions that release nuclear energy to generate heat, which most frequently is then used in steam turbines to produce electricity in a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applic

              • You are unteachable, you continue to spew ignorance and falsehoods.

                An MMRTG is not called a reactor. Get that out of your ignorant skull.

                • Let's review here: You accuse others of being ignorant but have yet to post a single fact. You provided no links and no source. You don't know what nuclear power means despite me providing a link. You're just wrong and can't accept it.

                  • Re: (Score:1)

                    by jozer ( 58713 )

                    As someone who has worked in the nuclear power industry for more than 15 years, let me input my own pedantry:

                    A RTG is clearly nuclear power. The heat produced is due to a release of binding energy associated with the strong nuclear force.

                    A RTG is clearly NOT a nuclear reactor. A reactor is a device designed to allow things to react, and to react them in a controlled fashon. The decay of PU-239 cannot be controlled, and no miracle of geometry known to man can effect the rate of decay. A reactor implies contr

                    • In your nuclear power experience, has NASA ever used a nuclear fission reactor in a spacecraft? If so when? The whole point was the OP was very derisive that NASA didn’t use a “nuclear reactor” in this rover when in fact they have never used one and I don’t know of any working designs they can use. NASA has used RTG for decades though. I am guessing that the OP didn’t know that the rover is powered with plutonium and not solar cells.

  • Not mentioned in the article is getting these bigger rovers there is practice for landing larger vehicles on Mars. IIRC Curiosity and the 2012 rover are something like 1 ton each. About like a small car. To get them there we hit the atmosphere, launch parachutes to kinda slow stuff down, shed a headshield somewhere in there, then lower the rover on a crane and use rockets on the crane platform to bring it down to the ground, drop the rover off, then rocket off and crash in the distance.

    Smaller rovers we

  • Not a musk or anti musk question. He has said though that space agencies both private and govt, keep the barrier too low. if spacex wanted to do this today, what kind of rover would they build. not starship. just a rover. Transportation already accounted for. Again lets please avoid the pro musk and anti musk conversation.

  • Show me a stable, self-sufficient Moon-base that has survived at the very least for 20 years. Then we can begin talking Mars, but it will still take a long time. What, we do _not_ have any kind of Moon-base at the moment? Well, then I would say humans on Mars in this century is a stretch and quite unlikely to happen.

    • Look at the technological progress we made as a species from 1900 to 2000. We're about one day away from beginning 2020, meaning we still have 80 years to establish a colony on Mars.

      Seeing how all governments and private companies are pushing for space tech, it wouldn't surprise me if we succeeded.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        You mean things like messing up the climate? Does not strike me _that_ impressive. Also, the tech progress is not that good either, measured against what would be needed.

      • No, several huge technological barriers remain to be solved before any colony on Mars can be contemplated. It will not happen in this century.

  • there is no air, no ocean nothing to live from except what some corporation or government will provide

  • ...as a large sterile room, at least not one in which humans are entering or exiting to construct something.

  • When the first men stepped on the Moon, half the earth was watching. Well, half of the part that had TVs.

    Now we're off to Mars, and those amazing videos showing the pinacle of human technology, get few thousand views. That's about the level of a fart app for the new iPhone. What the heck happened to humanity?

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