My family and I went to the wonderful NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Open House this weekend. Among the many fascinating sights they shared with the public, this was our favorite. The mobility test platform for the Curiosity Mars rover. With its rocker-bogie passive balance suspension system, this bot does not consider large rocks to be much of an obstacle. At 20″, its wheels are twice the size of those of its predecessors, including the forever-stuck Spirit. Plus, there was a woman from JPL controlling it from an iPhone.
Here’s a photo I took of the actual Curiosity rover in the clean room, awaiting its trip to Cape Canaveral for a November 2011 launch to Mars.
8 thoughts on “JPL Curiosity Mobility Platform”
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http://bass.tomsk.fm/flv2/125164089274056.flv – video – the test drive of the model of Soviet Marsokhod (I mean – Mars Rover) on the Kamchata peninsular, somewhere on the volcanic eruption.
It’s arranging is much better the american rover: it has no clearance and it could “step” with its three modules (so it can not stuck like Spirit ^_^ )
and one photo from test location on Tolbachik volkano
http://gazeta.aif.ru/data/mags/kamchatka/1588/pics/2_00.jpg
yes, but does it make popcorn?
Wheels attached to a steering arm on one side? I would think it would be better to split the wheels and attach the steering from above, that way it can’t get jammed up against a rock and get stuck.
Just looks like a huge mess. Will check more info on that and update here…
http://www.robotplatform.com