Sunday, January 4, 2015

Mars 2020...


The full article may be found here. I hope on this next one, they can manage to use wheels with more durable (read: puncture-proof) materials. I know weight is a critical factor, but so is its continuing mobility. As we've seen with Curiosity, those sharp rocks on the Martian surface play hell with the wheel rims, and the last thing we want is a "lame duck" sitting there helpless and therefore useless. That would seem to be the "weak link" on the current rover.

Could that have been mitigated by making those wheels wider, or perhaps adding another pair, making four on each side, to reduce the weight per surface area, or in other words give it a larger 'footprint'?











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