The Planetary Society’s Mars Station Project – red rover.
Visitors to the Mars Station’s website
simply log in to the Mars Station computer and operate the rover!
A control panel interface allows the
user to drive the rover, with an image panel
showing the visitor the rover’s
perspective of its environment.
A logbook records who has visited and
the commands that have been issued to the rover. There is also a
message window, through which users can
send messages to each other.
If more than one user tries to connect
at once, the software allows the visitors to take turns,
giving control of the rover to one
visitor at a time while allowing the other visitors to see
through the rover’s camera and send
messages to each other while they wait to drive.
Mars rover controll panell.
Exploring the unknown environments is
exciting! Visitors explore the Mars world
remotely, running the rover around to
see what’s just beyond the field of view, or what’s behind that rock. They may
also find out that controlling a rover from hundreds of miles away is not as
easy as driving a remote controlled car that you can see. At some Mars
Stations, visitors will be offered challenges: discovering certain rocks,
retrieving valuable samples, or safely traversing a rock-strewn plain.
Bareket observatory – Mars dioram.
A true prespective of:
Olympus mons, vallis marrinaris and tharsis bulge.
Mars Stations are intended to give the public
a sense of the challenge and excitement of exploring Mars using robotic rovers.
Each Mars Station consists of a small diorama of the Martian surface containing
a robotic rover.
The rover can be controlled from a
control panel interface on a computer, either locally or over the Internet.
Drivers are unable to see the rover;
they can only see what the rover “sees” through its camera, just as mission
scientists experience
Mars through the sensory instruments on
the NASA rovers. Kids and adults alike are eager to explore the Mars
environment, moving and turning the rover to see what’s behind (or over) that
rock. Each individual Mars Station is designed to represent a specific location
on Mars; Web content tailored to each Station teaches visitors about Martian
geography and why each location is unique and scientifically interesting.
Current Mars Stations include: the
Pathfinder landing site; two Mars Exploration Rover landing sites (Terra
Meridiani and Gusev Crater); the South Pole; Flank of Olympus Mons; and Melas
Chasma, Valles Marineris.
If the Mras rover camera shows a dark frame – it means that tere
is currently a night at the dioram site.
