A rover in space exploration, also called roving vehicle, is a vehicle designed to move around on the surface of the Moon or on another planet. Rovers must be designed to withstand the harsh environmental circumstances of the specific celestial body they are meant to be used on. They must be very robust, have the ability to drive around or pass over obstacles in their way, and cope with extreme fluctuations in temperature and the corrosiveness and grittiness of the type of regolith, sands and stones of the astronomical body. They can either be built for human transport, be partially or fully autonomous, or remotely controlled. Therefore, they can be of various different shapes and sizes.
Moon rover[]
NASA[]
Rovers were used on the Moon by the Americans for both human transportation and materials handling. They were sent to the Moon during the early exploration days already, first time with Apollo 15 in 1971.[1] [BTS 1] The rovers could carry 2 astronauts and their equipment.
By 1994, NASA had at least 7 functional rovers on the Moon, presumably even more.[2]
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Soviet Space Program[]
The Soviets also used rovers with their Zvezda lunar base. They used 6-wheel crawler type vehicles for transporting humans and cargo.
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Mars rover[]
Uncrewed vehicles[]
Several different rovers have been sent to Mars before the first crewed landing. These were partially autonomous and remotely controlled vehicles in various sizes and with different scientific tasks.
The first rover on Mars was sent there in 1975 by NASA and was called Sojourner, same as the crewed mission and its spaceship Sojourner 1 20 years later. It was brought there by the Hermes probe, which launched in 1974 and landed sucessfully 11 month later in Ares Vallis. It made the first ever images of the Martian surface and sent them back to Earth. Several earlier attempts by both NASA and the Soviet Space Program had failed, including the US Viking and the USSR Mars landers. Hermes used airbagsW originally developed by the automobile industry to touch the Martian ground undamaged.[3] [BTS 2]
During later missions, several more rovers were sent to Mars to various locations, like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.
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Crewed vehicles[]
For their Mars missions in 1995, both NASA and Helios Aerospace had several rovers sent to the planet's surface.[4] It is unknown, if the Soviets had brought rovers with their Mars-94 spacecraft too, as their mission failed already during the trip to the red planet.
NASA[]
The US Sojourner mission had a crawler type rover and two 4-wheel vehicles, all sent to the Martian surface by a support mission launched one year before in 1993. Other than their lunar rovers, these vehicles all have pressurized cabins, allowing for longer trips without the need to wear a spacesuit all the time.[4]
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Helios[]
Helios used two huge 6-wheel rovers that also served as mobile habitats for the crew. Additionally, at least one crawler type vehicle was sent to the ground, used for their drilling rig on the search for water. They were all sent to the surface by one-way landing pods.[4]
Although not designed for so many people, after the disastrous landslide the remaining HAB rover was able to accommodate 10 persons.
As Happy Valley base continued to be built up, Helios provided more rovers to be used by the inhabitants. This included a type of wheeled rover with docking ports on the top and back, to be used in transporting people from Hopper landers to the base.
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Behind the scenes[]
- ↑ In reality, NASA used the lunar roving vehiclesW in their last 3 missions (Apollo 15, 16, 17) during 1971 and 1972.
- ↑ In the real timeline, the first NASA rover arrived on Mars in 1997 only, with the PathfinderW mission.
External links[]
Rover (space exploration) on Wikipedia- Lunar rover on Wikipedia
- Apollo rovers on Wikipedia
- Mars rover on Wikipedia
- List of rovers on extraterrestrial bodies on Wikipedia
References
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 1, episode 5, "Into the Abyss"
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 3, episode 3, "All In"
- ↑ Bonus Video: One Giant Leap: 1975-1982 - Mars Landing (1975)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 For All Mankind TV series, season 3