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NASA's March 2020 robot "pauses" during a spin test in a clean room of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
(Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)
The next NASA robot rover made a breakdance to prepare for the exploration of the red planet.
In one new animation of August 29, the March 2020 rover can be seen taking a walk – literally. The spacecraft was placed on a rotating table in a "clean room", a workspace designed to prevent contamination, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. On the table, the rover was circling at a speed of about one turn per minute.
"The rotation table process is similar to the one used by a service station to balance a new tire before putting it on your car," said Lemil Cordero, Mars 2020 Mass Specialist Engineer at JPL. said in a statement. "We rotate the rover back and forth and look for asymmetries in its mass distribution, and then, as if your service station put small weights on the rim of the tire to balance it, we would place small balancing masses on the rover at specific locations, to get its center of gravity exactly where we want it ".
Related, connected, related: NASA asks students to name their March 2020 mobile
Engineers need to know the center of gravity of the rover in order to help it prepare for its long journey to the red planet, which should take place next year. This will be particularly important for difficult entry, descent and landing phases. March 2020 uses a "sky" Lower the rover to the surface during the final stages of the landing. This technology and this maneuver are so new in engineering that the descent of NASA 's Curiosity robot, which used this technology, in 2012, has been described as "seven minutes of terror. "
To better balance the new rover, the engineers added nine tungsten weights totaling 20 kg after the spin test. The rover will once again be running at a NASA facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, next spring. March 2020 is expected to be launched in July 2020 from Cape Canaveral and land at Mars from Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. If all goes as planned, this rover will be the first to retarget its landing point by the time he will land.
If you want to send your name to Mars with the spaceship, NASA has an open space for you. Make sure you have your name before September 30th.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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