It is the ultimate off-roader, a six-wheeled robotic SUV that ships with lasers and a nuclear power plant as standard. Able to survive temperatures as high as 2,100C, radiation showers and dust storms that last for weeks, this self-driving electric car could be the toughest vehicle ever made.
But before you reach for your credit card to reserve one, be warned: it costs more than $1 billion (£640m) and has a top speed of less than 0.1mph.
Nasa’s newest rover, named Curiosity, is already hurtling through space and is due to land on Mars in early August when it will conduct a series of scientific experiments.
Until recently, rovers were wimpy affairs, built to travel just half a mile in their lifetimes and reliant on solar panels that got covered in dust or shut down during the Martian winter. Curiosity, though, has many of the same components as modern plug-in vehicles. Like concept electric cars from Volvo and Jaguar, it has a motor inside each of its 20in aluminium wheels, powered by rechargeable batteries. The front and rear wheels can steer independently, allowing the rover to spin, drive in arcs or even dig into the Martian soil by activating corner wheels on their own.
Curiosity gets all its power from a nuclear generator that converts radioactive heat from 10.6lb of plutonium into electricity. It will work continuously for at least 14 years, charging two lithium-ion batteries.
Advertisement
Because radio signals take more than five minutes to travel from Earth to Mars, Curiosity has to be able to drive itself. “We’re never driving it in real time,” says John Grotzinger, a Nasa scientist who helped design the rover. “We send a signal telling it to carry out all these activities, which it then does autonomously during the course of each Martian day.”
Like Google’s self-driving cars now undergoing trials in California and Nevada, Curiosity uses digital video cameras to navigate and avoid obstacles. Two pairs of stereoscopic “navcams” are mounted 6½ft above the ground, feeding 3-D images to the rover’s twin computers. Four more pairs of “hazcams” have wide-angle lenses to spot rocks on all sides. Other equipment includes lasers to analyse the content of rocks.
Curiosity might be the toughest vehicle in the solar system, but Nasa is not providing much in the way of insurance. “The mission is for two years and 12½ miles. For anything after that, the warranty wears off,” says Grotzinger.
As for nervous astronauts considering a fully comprehensive policy on a $1 billion self-driving electric car? Let’s just say the cost would be out of this world.
Advertisement