Instrument deployment for Mars Rovers

Future Mars rovers, such as the planned 2009 MSL rover, require sufficient autonomy to robustly approach rock targets and place an instrument in contact with them. It took the 1997 Sojourner Mars rover between 3 and 5 communications cycles to accomplish this. This paper describes the technologies being developed and integrated onto the NASA Ames K9 prototype Mars rover to both accomplish this in one cycle, and to extend the complexity and duration of operations that a Mars rover can accomplish without intervention from mission control

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Liam Pedersen, Maria Bualat, Clayton Kunz, Susan Y. Lee, Randy Sargent, Richard Washington, Anne Wright
• Keywords: Future Mars Rovers, ICRA 2003, Mars Rover, MSL Rover, Robotics