Why doesn the lander have a rover?
The MVACS integrated payload that NASA selected for MPL lander did not include a rover. Using a rover like the Sojourner rover on Mars Pathfinder for this mission was out of the question because: (a) The total mass allocated to the lander’s integrated payload was 20kg. For comparison, the total mass of the Sojourner Rover plus its lander-mounted support equipment was over 16 kg. Of this mass, only 0.74 kg was devoted to the Alpha-Proton X-Ray Spectrometer, the rover’s only science instrument. (b) The total cost of the MPL integrated payload was capped at $20 million. The total cost of reflying a copy of the Sojourner rover, as is planned by the Mars Surveyor Program ’01 lander mission is comparable. (c) The scientific goals of the MVACS payload were better served by a robotic arm, whose total mass is approximately 5 kg. 7. Why is the lander going to the Martian south polar region? The purpose of the MPL mission is to study Mars volatiles and climate. The Martian polar regions are the b
Related Questions
- I read the lander/rover has "a cooling fan" for its computer components, is this fan similar to the one in my machine at home keeping my CPU "cool"?
- What is the data rate between the rover and the lander, and how far away can the rover travel away from the lander?
- What happens to the rover after the 30 sol primary mission of the lander?
