NASA
has made its Mars
rovers even smarter with computer upgrades beamed through space that give the
robots greater power to act on their own on the red
planet.
The
multi-megabyte software upgrades installed four new capabilities into the Mars
Exploration Rovers Spirit
and Opportunity. Opportunity and Spirit have both lasted far longer
than expected, giving NASA to field-test new capabilities on Mars useful to
both the current missions and those of future rovers.
[Video:
All Eyes on Mars]
The
"auto-place" capability enables the rovers to calculate the best
targets on which to place their instruments. Before, researchers would have to
wait for images from the rovers, command them to perhaps move a bit to line up
just right, and then plan a course for the arm to follow to bring the
instruments down.
"Auto-place
tries to eliminate all that work," Jet Propulsion Laboratory software engineer
Khaled Ali told Space.com. "We just checked out the autonomous mode
on that and we should see some real benefits from that soon."
The
"visual target tracking" capability enables the rovers
to lock onto and keep recognizing a target as they move towards it, even if its
appearance changes in size or angle as the rovers get closer or run up a slope.
Ideally,
the visual target tracking capability will combine with the auto-place feature
for an ability dubbed "go and touch," which will allow engineers on
Earth to pick a target, for the rover will drive up to and then place
instruments on," Ali said.
The
new onboard science capability, often simply dubbed "watch," helps
the rovers recognize dust devils and clouds, so they can take pictures for
scientists and not waste time taking endless snapshots researchers don't want,
freeing up rover communication time for additional scientific investigations.
"Dust devil season is starting up on Mars, so the onboard science
capability should become very useful in the near future," Ali said.
The
final new capability, dubbed D*, helps the rovers plan maneuvers away from or
around obstacles. "You could drop them in a middle of a maze, and they
would find their way out," Ali said. "Still, ever since Spirit was
severely hobbled, with one wheel not working anymore, it hasn't really had the
chance to use it, and the area Opportunity is in doesn't present it with as
many obstacles, so I'm not sure we'll really ever get to make full use of D*
with these rovers."
While
the upgrades were installed in September, NASA is still gradually checking each
out to make sure each is safe for us. "I'm guessing it will take another
couple of months," Ali said.
The
Mars Exploration Rovers both landed on Mars a little more than three Earth
years now Opportunity has been on Mars for 1,087 Martian days, or sols, which
is 997 more than it was supposed to last, and has just logged more than 10
kilometers (6.2 miles) of travel. Spirit has lasted 1,107 sols, or 1,017
"past warranty," and has logged about 6.9 kilometers (4.3 miles).
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