University Rover Challenge: Making a Simulation Mars Rover

1. University Rover Challenge: Making a Simulation Mars Rover

2. Can you find earth in this picture?

3. 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

5. http://mars.byu.edu/html/aboutus.htm MDRS: Mars Desert Research Station

8. 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.

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

10. Mars Science Lab is bigger than other Rovers http://www.astrobio.net/images/galleryimages_images/Gallery_Image_6331.jpg

11. Niki Farnsworth Brimhall BS BYU Physics 04 PHD. BYU 09, Physics Postdoc: U of Utah, Biomaterials

12. Miriam Stephens West & Stephen West

13. Hal near the MDRS http://marsrover.byu.edu

14. 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.

15. 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

16. So was Nyssa Roderick Brown As was Ellie

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

18. 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.

19. The BYU Mars Rover Team in 2009.

20. Last year

21. 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.

23. We have 4 crosslisted classes ECEn 493R Borgholthaus Michael A Broadbent Lane David Carlson Stephen Joseph Coles Shane Gregory Gleave Nicholas Sean Gutierrez Jaime Moises Kwarteng Barima Kwame Ababio Norgrant Andrew Kenneth HONORS 293 R (7) Jones Gene Robert Smith Justin Didn’t have time to get all of the pix.

24. ME 495R Ellis Jeremy Conrad Gillespie Morgan Hendricks Lorin James Jafek Alexander Robert Kuhn Joshua Brian Lee Victoria Dawn Llewellyn Brandon Scott Marshall Daniel Boysen Porter Joshua Evan Schramm Trent Jonathan

26. BYU’s effort 2010-11 Design 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.

27. 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 bacteriasuch as cyanobacteria/blue-green algae, other bacterial colonies such as are associated with desert varnish, as well as other nonbacterial extremophiles such as lichen.

28. John Barainca found endoliths in this area.

29. 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.)

30. Bibliography • http://marsrover.byu.edu/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYU_Mars_Rover • http://mars.byu.edu/html/aboutus.htm

32. 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.

34. Spirit and Opportunity

35. Simulated image of Spirit.

36. 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

39. Kathleen Moncrieff

40. Rover Loft. B-38 BYU

41. John Barainca found endoliths in this area.