What Makes Mars Rover do its Work?

Posted On: December 19, 2011 12:53 pm

 

To pack in all of this instrumentation, motorization and power generation, the rovers are pretty big -- perhaps the size of a small riding lawn mower. Here are the stats

•    1.5 meters (4.9 feet) high (with the mast up)
•    2.3 meters (7.5 feet) wide
•    1.6 meters (5.2 feet) long
•    174 kilograms (384 pounds)
•    Maximum speed: Perhaps 30 meters (about 100 feet) per hour, and 100 meters at most per day
•    Panoramic cameras: According to this page: Pancam is a multispectral, stereoscopic, panoramic imaging system consisting of two digital cameras mounted on a mast 1.5 m above the Martian surface. The mast allows Pancam to image the full 360° in azimuth and ±90° in elevation. Each Pancam camera utilizes a 1024 × 1024 active imaging area frame transfer CCD detector array. The Pancam optics have ... a field of view of 16° × 16°.
•    Cost: Approximately $820 million total (for both rovers) $645 million for design/development + $100 million for the Delta launch vehicle and the launch + $75 million for mission operations

 

Source: Howstuffswork.com