How was the lunar rover that the astronauts drove on the moon stored in the small lander?
They were folded up and stored in one of four Quad bays in the descent stage of the LEM.It’s also how the images of Armstrong descending the ladder and stepping on the moon were done being that he was the first to do so. A panel folded out from one of the quad bays housing the camera which took the photo.To the right of the ladder is the bay which stored the Rover.The MESA was stored to the left of the ladder and it was this fold out platform from which Armstrong was filmed….The Rover was folded up to store in the quad bay..>It was deployed from the bay and unfolded on the lunar surface.
Is a planetary rover a kind of ATV (all-terrain vehicle)?
Nope. Not the ones we have now.According to American National Standards Institute (ANSI), ATV is "a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, with a seat that is straddled by the operator, along with handlebars for steering control". An operator is be required.I guess we'll have ATVs on the moon and Mars that look like the rover in the film The Martian. But "Planetary Rover" still sounds much cooler.
Triple Core vs Quad Core?
The triple-core Athlon II X3 445 is much better for gaming, even if the last core doesn't successfully unlock (there's never any guarantee). The original Phenom X4 series of CPUs were weak performers overall... Not very competitive against Intel's Core 2 Duo and Quad. Phenom II was greatly improved, offering great bang/buck. The vast majority of games aren't heavily multi-threaded, so they don't run any better on quad cores than dual cores of the same clock speed. A few utilize more than two cores, but for them a triple core is enough, because it's clock speed that really matters. In this case, the Phenom X4 9850 is only 2.5Ghz compared to 3.1Ghz for the Athlon II X3 445. And for gaming, clock speed is king, NOT the number of cores. Here's how the 3.0Ghz Athlon II X3 440 compares: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/1... As you can see the quad is better for video editing and 3D rendering applications, but in games (bottom of the page) the X3 440 has a clear advantage, about 4-5 fps better on average. And the 445 is even faster. Here's the take from Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athl...
What size transmitter is used on the Mars Rover to communicate with an Earth base station?
I’ll talk here about what they use once they’re on the surface. Most of the Mars landers have additional equipment in the cruise stage of one sort or another.The two MER spacecraft (Spirit and Opportunity) have a UHF radio and an X-band radio. The UHF radio (from Cincinnati Electronics ) has a small monopole antenna (like a whip), radiates 12 Watts, and works at rates of 8, 32, 128, and 256 kbps to an orbiter (MRO, Odyssey, etc) which relays the data back to Earth. The X-band radio (an SDST) is connected to a 16 W solid state power amplifier (SSPA) and can use either a broad beam Low Gain Antenna(LGA), or the flat paddle shaped High Gain Antenna (HGA). The X-band downlink can operate up to around 11kbps, so it’s a lot slower than the UHF.Curiosity, the Mars Science Lander (MSL), has a similar complement, except that the UHF radio is an Electra - a software defined radio developed at JPL, which can support higher data rates to the relay satellite (up to 4 Mbps). MSL (and Mars2020) also carry a better UHF antenna - a quad helix that’s about the size of a coffee can. MSL also carried a separate X-band radio and 100W TWT power amplifier on the descent stage as well as the UHF Electra and the SDST + 15 W SSPA on the rover. The higher power on the descent stage is because there’s only lower gain antennas (the descent stage is maneuvering, and there’s no room for a pointing gimbal for a HGA), so more power is needed to close the link.Here’s where you can find reports on a lot of the missions that tell you what kind of communications equipment they carry, what the communications strategy is, and in some cases, the actual observed performance.Design & Performance Summary Series
How did they manage to land Curiosity on specific place?
The simplest answer is that you simulate landing where you want to land, and then run the movie in reverse to see what your trajectory looks like arriving at Mars. You launch to that trajectory from Earth, do a few (three to five) maneuvers between Earth and Mars to fine tune to the desired trajectory and arrive at the right entry point in the atmosphere at the right time. For Curiosity, those were within a few hundred meters and a few seconds! (Our navigators are really good.)We’re not there yet. Even though we hit the atmosphere very accurately, random variations in the atmosphere density will spread out the set of possible points on the surface where we will land (called the landing ellipse, due to its shape) to around a hundred kilometers. We can fix that with another kind of control called hypersonic guidance.The entry capsule has an offset center of gravity which gives it a little bit of lift. The capsule can be rotated with thrusters to rotate that lift vector. It can be turned to be lift up, down, left, right, etc. We take the knowledge of where in the atmosphere we entered (which is better than the control) and propagate that with gyroscopes and accelerometers on the vehicle to get the actual trajectory. Where the current trajectory differs from the desired trajectory due to density variations, we rotate the lift vector appropriately to correct forward, back, left, or right to get back on target.With that, Curiosity was able to target an ellipse about 20 km in length and 7 km wide. It actually landed 2.4 km from the center of the target.
Why don't we use solar powered drones to explore Mars and return to the rovers?
Drone aircraft?Mars has VERY little atmosphere - so the kinds of quad-copter drones we have here on Earth wouldn’t generate enough thrust to get off the ground.Flying on Mars is going to be extremely difficult.Rockets work - but they consume reaction mass - so even if they were “solar powered” - they’d still need some kind of material to provide thrust.Balloons might work - but they would have to absolutely enormous to lift any significant payload.But rotors, wings - that kind of thing - seem virtually impossible.Some people have suggested using something that could hop into the air - using springs that could be compressed with electric motors - then released suddenly to catapult the aircraft into the air - then to fall back to the ground, re-compress the springs and do it again. With lower gravity on Mars, this might work better than you’d expect.Suffice to say - whatever ends up being used - it’s not going to look anything like an airplane you’ve ever seen on Earth.
What is better than a Jeep Wrangler for off road?
I know this is a hard question. Feel free to say "nothing" or "a mountain bike" or "god" or something like that if you cant find a better vehicle.
Is the Martian atmosphere too thin for a quadcopter drone to operate in conjunction with the rovers?
Is the Martian atmosphere too thin for a quadcopter drone to operate in conjunction with the rovers?If you are referring to the commercially available quadcopers on Earth… yes, The atmosphere is too thin for them to fly.One designed for the Mars environment could work though.The blades would be shaped differently, move considerably faster, and likely be larger.The current drone planned is not a quadcopter,JPL Mars Helicopter Scout - WikipediaI suspect the required quad support frame made it a bit too heavy.
Do you think Neil Armstrong would use GoPro and drones when landing on the moon in 1969 if these gadgets were available?
Well, do you believe in progress? Neil Armstrong was not stupid. But equipment choice was not Armstrong’s. Launch mass was the main concern.Flying drones as they are known these days, some quad-copters, can’t fly without air. People did consider rovers, and the Soviets would eventually send a couple to the Moon as did the Chinese recently. And the US would have human drive rovers on later Apollo missions (just not steerable from Earth (another controversy)).The problem with GoPro cameras and why the Hasselblads were chosen was for maximum scientific resolution. Cameras weren’t taken to make home movies. Film at that time (and this time) still has higher spatial and spectral resolution than the best available CCDs.Everything has to be adapted to work in space. If something fails, the responsible head rolls. And Neil would complain. Ideally fully tested on Earth (environmental test chambers (vacuum, heat/cold, etc.).