University Rover Challenge: Making a Simulation Mars Rover

Can you find earth in this picture?

Outline• MDRS & BYU• Discussion of event at past & future

competitions• Past BYU Rovers for URC• The astrobiology task.

– Endoliths.

• Optional– History of Rovers on Mars– How might Rovers of the kind we are making

be used by future explorers

MDRS: Mars Desert Research Station

http://mars.byu.edu/html/aboutus.htm

Doug Archer

BS BYU Physics 04

PHD. U of AZ 09, Designed ovens for Phoenix Mission.

Currently working at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX on the Mars Science Laboratory, the next robotic mission to Mars.

http://www.udel.edu/research/polar/images/Artist%27sMarsLander.jpg

Mars Science Lab is bigger than other Rovers

http://www.astrobio.net/images/galleryimages_images/Gallery_Image_6331.jpg

Niki Farnsworth Brimhall

BS BYU Physics 04PHD. BYU 09, PhysicsPostdoc: U of Utah, Biomaterials

Miriam Stephens West & Stephen West

Hal near the MDRS

http://marsrover.byu.edu

About the competition.

• “The University Rover Challenge (URC) is an annual international competition hosted by the Mars Society for University and College students to complete a given scenario using a rover the team has built.”

• It was announced Fall of 2006.

The writing on this slide and Much of the writing on the subsequent slides are from Wikipedia and BYU’s website. I mostly won’t use quotation marks.

Travis Brown: Prime Mover 1st- 3rd BYU entries. Ahh the life of an

engineer. July 9, 2007

BYU ME 2009Notre Dame robotics

So was Neil Hinckley

So was Nyssa Roderick Brown

As was Ellie

A little more history of the BYU Rover.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYU_Mars_Rover

Some unique things about the project.

• It is not a capstone or run by knowledgeable engineering professor.

• Professor Allred is more customer than manager.

• Students have done their own management and organization.

• We are very grateful for the nonengineers/ nonscientist on the project. Leadership, organization & financials.

The BYU Mars Rover Team in 2009.

Last year

2010 featured the largest pool of registered teams yet.

• The tasks were once again similar, but some now with added complexity:

• Emergency Navigation to find a distressed astronaut and deliver a package

• Equipment Servicing to read a list of step-by-step commands directing the rover to push buttons, flip switches and plug an electrical plugs into outlets in a predefined order.

• Sample Return to search for a location in the area that exhibits signs of extremophiles, return the sample so that it can be analyzed at the base station.

• Remote Surveying to find the location of posts placed in the desert using the rover.

We have 4 crosslisted classesECEn 493RBorgholthaus Michael A Broadbent Lane DavidCarlson Stephen JosephColes Shane GregoryGleave Nicholas SeanGutierrez Jaime MoisesKwarteng Barima Kwame AbabioNorgrant Andrew Kenneth

HONORS 293 R (7) Jones Gene RobertSmith Justin

Didn’t have time to get all of the pix.

ME 495REllis Jeremy ConradGillespie MorganHendricks Lorin JamesJafek Alexander RobertKuhn Joshua BrianLee Victoria DawnLlewellyn Brandon ScottMarshall Daniel BoysenPorter Joshua EvanSchramm Trent Jonathan

BYU’s effort 2010-11Design Teams on the Rover• Power Team headed up by Daniel Hearn • Com/Radio Team headed up by Mike Borg • Controls Team headed up by Daniel Woo • Chassis Team headed up by Mark Davis • Video Team headed up by Andrew

Norgrant

There is a need for more.

We need help on the astrobiology task.

Sample Return Task:Teams will be given a field briefing by judges to discuss the task site. Teams controlling their rovers shall then select multiple (3-6) sites of potential biological interest within a 0.8 km radius of the start gate. Based upon investigation of the selected sites, teams shall then collect and return a single sample from the site they determine to have the greatest likelihood of containing photosynthetic bacteria such as cyanobacteria/blue-green algae, other bacterial colonies such as are associated with desert varnish, as well as other nonbacterial extremophiles such as lichen.

John Barainca

found endoliths in this area.

We have:

• Robust arm and sensor development• A chemical engineer (we thinking of GC

when we get sample back to tent.)We need geologist and someone who wants

to be an astrobiologist. • We are wondering about utilizing BYU

expertise in hyperspectral analysis to look for likely rocks. (Cameras and narrowband filters.)

Bibliography

• http://marsrover.byu.edu/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYU_Mars_Rover

• http://mars.byu.edu/html/aboutus.htm

The coating on the window on Sojourner’s alpha ray spectrometer –this is a element detector- was made by Yuan Fang at Moxtek. He received his PhD at BYU developing this.

Spirit and Opportunity

Simulated image of Spirit.

Mars Statistics• Mass (kg) 6.421e+23 Mass (Earth = 1) 1.0745e-01 • Equatorial radius (km) 3,397.2 Equatorial radius (Earth = 1)

5.3264e-01 • Mean density (gm/cm^3) 3.94 • Mean distance from the Sun (km) 227,940,000 • Mean distance from the Sun (Earth = 1)1.5237 • Rotational period (hours) 24.6229 • Rotational period (days) 1.025957 • Orbital period (days) 686.98 • Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) 24.13 • Orbital eccentricity0.0934 • Tilt of axis (degrees) 25.19 Orbital inclination (degrees) 1.850 • Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2) 3.72 • Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) 5.02 • Visual geometric albedo0.15 • Magnitude (Vo)-2.01

Minimum surface temperature-140°C

Mean surface temperature-63°C

Maximum surface temperature 20°C

Atmospheric pressure (bars) 0.007

Atmospheric composition

Carbon Dioxide (C02) 95.3200%

Nitrogen (N2) 2.7000%

Argon (Ar) 1.6000%

Oxygen (O2) 0.1300%

Carbon Monoxide (CO) 0.0700%

Water (H2O) 0.0300%

Kathleen Moncrieff

Rover Loft. B-38 BYU

John Barainca

found endoliths in this area.