New Mars Forums

Ron Carlson

Banned

From: Near JSC

Registered: 2007-12-08

Posts: 39

Re: Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

Hyper-capable Rover Has Appetite For Large Boulders

Full Res JPG (8.3 MB)

Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

On June 19, 2007, media visited JPL’s newly expanded outdoor Mars Yard where rovers train for future planetary missions. Visitors were treated to a test drive of the “Scarecrow” rover. Scarecrow might still be missing its computer “brains,” but it certainly showed off its monster appetite for large boulders, making easy work of traversing them. In early 2008, assembly of this hefty, hyper-capable rover will begin.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The "Scarecrow Rover" is impressive indeed.

Large long-range rovers are definitely needed in the future for exploring Mars.

Even larger rovers could be used for transporting groups of people or supplies across the Martian surface.

Ron Carlson

cIclops

Member

Registered: 2005-06-16

Posts: 3,230

Re: Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

See MSL topic for more images and lots of details

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[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

Ron Carlson

Banned

From: Near JSC

Registered: 2007-12-08

Posts: 39

Re: Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

8)

Here are some images of the opening of JPL's new MarsYard.

Enjoy!

New MarsYard Unveiled

http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/news/n … ?NewsID=70

NEWS

New MarsYard Unveiled

06/26/2007
   

Ribbon cutting:
Samad Hayati, Manager of Mars Technology Program, (left),
Gene Tattini, JPL Deputy Director (center),
Firouz Naderi, JPL Associate Director (right).
   

A new MarsYard to test the mobility and autonomy of future Mars rovers was unveiled at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on June 19, 2007. This new facility is approximately 21,000 square feet, six times larger than the previous MarsYard, and includes a new building that will be used to house rover operations.

This facility will be used by Robotics personnel funded by the Mars Technology Program to test new capabilities developed under the program. The facility will also be used by Robotics personnel working on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project, to test and validate flight rover capabilities.

MSL's prototype rover, called Scarecrow, was unveiled in this ribbon-cutting ceremony. Measuring over 2 meters in length and width, it is capable of carrying large science payloads and traversing over much rougher terrain than the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER).

Two new research rovers, Athena and Pluto, were also shown in operation during the event. They were joined by a third research rover and older sibling, FIDO. All are smaller than Scarecrow and similar in size to MER.

More Images:

JPL's new MarsYard  Enlarge +

Scarecrow demonstrates its mobility capabilities  Enlarge +

Ron Carlson

Ron Carlson

Banned

From: Near JSC

Registered: 2007-12-08

Posts: 39

Re: Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

Here are images of the Athena, Pluto and FIDO rovers.

The Athena Rover before upgrades, in the JPL Marsyard.

The Pluto Rover

The FIDO rover

Ron Carlson

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Shutterbugs Shoot 'Scarecrow'

I am going to look at this in a different way. The MarsYard is an analog site for rover design but going one step further this could be a theme park for tourist to view what a rover does when it gets to its destination.