The Astronomy Book

320

I

n August 2012, the Mars

Science Laboratory Rover,

better known as Curiosity,

landed on Mars. This 2,000-lb

(900-kg) wheeled vehicle, which

is still roaming the Martian surface,

is a mobile laboratory equipped to

conduct geological experiments

aimed at figuring out the natural

history of the red planet. It is the

latest robot explorer to reach

Mars, and the largest and most

advanced in a long line of rovers

sent to explore other worlds.

Wanderers

The potential of rovers in space

was clear as far back as 1971,

when Apollo 15 carried a four-wheel

Lunar Roving Vehicle to the moon.

This agile two-seater widened the

scope of lunar exploration for the

last three Apollo missions. For

instance, during the first moon

landing in 1969, Neil Armstrong

and Buzz Aldrin spent just two

and a half hours moonwalking, and

the farthest they moved from their

lunar module was 200 ft (60 m).

By contrast, however, in the final

Apollo moon mission, Apollo 17,

in 1972, the crew of two—Eugene

Cernan and Harrison Schmitt—

EXPLORING MARS

spent more than 22 hours outside.

In their rover, they covered 22 miles

(36 km) in total, with one drive

taking the pair 4.7 miles (7.6 km)

from their spacecraft. The Lunar

Roving Vehicle, or moon buggy,

was used to collect rocks. The six

Apollo missions returned to Earth

with 840 lb (381 kg) of them.

Analysis of these rocks revealed

much about the history of the moon.

The oldest were about 4.6 billion

years old, and their chemical

composition clearly showed a

common ancestry with rocks on

Earth. Tests revealed no evidence

of organic compounds, indicating

that the moon has always been

a dry and lifeless world.

Lunokhod 1

The Soviet lunar program, which

began in the early 1960s, relied on

unmanned probes to explore the

moon. Three of the Soviet Luna

IN CONTEXT

KEY ORGANIZATION

NASA—Mars exploration

BEFORE

1970 The Soviets’ Lunokhod 1

becomes the first vehicle to be

used on another body when it

touches down on the moon.

1971 The Lunar Roving

Vehicle is driven on the moon

for the first time during

NASA’s Apollo 15 mission.

1977 NASA’s Sojourner is

the first rover to reach Mars.

AFTER

2014 Opportunity breaks the

distance record for a rover on

an extraterrestrial body.

2020 The NASA Mars 2020

rover is set to be launched as

a replacement for Curiosity.

2020/21 The ExoMars rover

is due to be deployed by the

European Space Agency in

Oxia Planum, a depression

filled with clay-bearing rocks.

Mars has been flown by,

orbited, smacked into,

radar-examined, and rocketed

onto, as well as bounced

upon, rolled over, shoveled,

drilled into, baked, and even

blasted. Still to come: Mars

being stepped on.

Buzz Aldrin

Geologist−astronaut Harrison

Schmitt collects samples from the lunar

surface during the 1972 Apollo 17

mission. He spent many hours exploring

the surface on the moon buggy.