Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving

Test Rover Aids Preparations in California for Curiosity Rover on Mars

Mars Science Laboratory mission team members ran mobility tests on California sand dunes in early May 2012 in preparation for operating the Curiosity rover, currently en route to Mars, after its landing in Mars' Gale Crater.

Team members of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission took a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert this week to improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity, currently flying to Mars for an August landing. 

Watching Test Drives in California for Rover Mission to Mars

Michael Malin, left, principal investigator for three science cameras on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, comments to a news reporter during tests with Curiosity's mobility-test stand-in, Scarecrow, on Dumont Dunes in California's Mojave Desert.

The test rover that they put through paces on various sandy slopes has a full-scale version of Curiosity's mobility system, but it is otherwise stripped down so that it weighs about the same on Earth as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser gravity of Mars.

Rover Technology

ROVER, which stands for Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver, is a system which allows ground forces, such as Forward Air Controllers (FAC), to see what an aircraft or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is seeing in real time by receiving images acquired by the aircraft's sensors on a laptop on the ground. There's little time delay and usage of ROVER greatly improves the FAC on the ground reconnaissance and target identification which are essential to close air support.

Rover Technology adds a user's location to other dimensions of system awareness, such as time, user preferences, and client device capabilities. The software architecture of Rover systems is designed to scale to large user populations.

Consider a group touring the museums in Washington, D.C. The group arrives at a registration point, where each person receives a handheld device with audio, video, and wireless communication capabilities. an off-the-shelf PDA available in the market today. A wireless-based system tracks the location of these devices and presents relevant information about displayed objects as the user moves through the museum. Users can query their devices for maps and optimal routes to objects of interest. They can also use the devices to reserve and purchase tickets to museum events later in the day. The group leader can send messages to coordinate group activities.