Kamis, 20 Februari 2014

This Chart Shows Every Space Exploration Rover Ever Launched onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

Written By 12; About: This Chart Shows Every Space Exploration Rover Ever Launched onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com on Kamis, 20 Februari 2014

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com This Chart Shows Every Space Exploration Rover Ever Launched

This Chart Shows Every Space Exploration Rover Ever Launched S


Maybe it's been the exciting, messiah-like death-and-rebirth of China's lunar rover, Jade Rabbit, but I've been thinking a lot about robotic space rovers lately. There haven't really been all that many — just eight have actually made it to either the moon or Mars. And now, for your use, are all eight collected on this handy chart!


Here's the three main criteria I used to define what rovers would end up on the chart: a rover must be mobile (that means no stationary landers like the Veneras on Venus or the Huygens probe on Titan), the rover must be either remote-controlled or have some degree of autonomy (that's why I'm not counting the Apollo-era Lunar Rovers, which are really more like vehicles), and the rover must have actually made it off of Earth.


The made-it-off-Earth criterion rules out any planned-but-never launched rovers like the tiny asteroid-romper planned for the Hayabusa, but allows for the ambitious-but-doomed Soviet Martian rover on skis, Prop-M. I'd actually never heard of Prop-M before, which, though tethered to the lander, managed some degree of very basic autonomy via simple impact sensors, and for 1971 was a real achievement. Too bad both of the ones sent crashed into the red dirt.


The chart includes country of origin, power source, remote/autonomy status, length, weight, all the stuff you'll need for quick reference.


Enjoy!


This Chart Shows Every Space Exploration Rover Ever Launched S


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com This Chart Shows Every Space Exploration Rover Ever Launched