Are plastics or other light-weight material used to make the MER Rovers?
Thanks for your excellent question! There are places in the MER rovers where plastics are used. I’m pretty confident the cable covering and insulation, for example, is made of plastic. However, the “record-holder” on MER for light-weight material is aerogel, the least dense solid in the world! It is used in the rover Warm Electronics Box (WEB) to keep Spirit and Opportunity toasty warm during the frigid Martian night. Aerogel is silicon dioxide (like sand or quartz), whipped up with air, like a silicon souffle. It is a uniform substance (not hollow), and it is a tremendous thermal insulator, especially for its weight. The impetus to keep rover weight low was there, though largely for the requirement to get the entire spacecraft launched to Mars, rather than for surface mobility reasons. Thanks for your awesome question! Todd J.
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