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Behind Mars Rover's Power

NASA's Curiosity is the biggest robot explorer ever to rove Mars. The Curiosity is powered by the Multi Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, which provides both electrical power and heat to the rover. About 100 Watts of electrical power is used to continuously charge the rover's battery. Heat can be pumped off of the generator using pipes to keep the rover's insides warm, including the scientific instruments.

Topics:
Aerospace Automation Batteries Data Acquisition Data Acquisition Measuring Instruments Power Management Robotics Thermal Management Thermoelectrics

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    Transcript

    00:00:06 hi I'm Ashwin Vasavada the deputy project scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory mission and it's Curiosity rover so a lot of people wonder why curiosity doesn't have solar panels like the Mars exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity the Mars exploration Rovers often found themselves short on power as dust settled on their solar panels this was especially a problem in the short

    00:00:28 days of winter we need a good strong and reliable source of power to keep curiosity going for over two years on Mars curiosity is two times bigger five times heavier and has 15 times the weight of scientific equipment relative to Spirit and Opportunity like those Rovers Curiosity surveys the landscape and examines rocks up close curiosity scientific mission involves

    00:00:49 driving around its landing site perhaps up to 15 or 20 miles collecting samples of rocks and soils with a big jack hammer drill located on the end of a six foot robotic arm those samples have delivered to the rover and analyzed with some very sophisticated and power-hungry analytical laboratory instruments that's where the MM RTG comes in the multi-mission radioisotope

    00:01:11 thermoelectric generator is a power source that we've used for years to power a spacecraft that have gone to the outer planets and even the Apollo missions use it on the moon behind me you can see a full scale model of curiosity including the generator in the back on this half scale model of the generator you can see what's inside the generator contains a specially produced

    00:01:32 form of plutonium dioxide the natural decay of this radioisotope gives off heat which these thermocouples can turn into electricity the generator provides both electrical power and heat to the rover about a hundred watts of electrical power is used to continuously charge the rover's battery also heat can be pumped off of the generator using pipes to keep the rover's insides warm

    00:01:54 including the scientific instruments with curiosity's generator there's a guaranteed way of charging the battery year-round in all sorts of conditions curiosity's generator was developed by the Department of Energy and will be installed on the rover just a few days before launch but to make sure everything works together properly the

    00:02:11 engineers installed the actual generator on the rover for the first time the blue light that you see was just additional lighting to help them make sure they could see what they were doing the Curiosity rover and a spacecraft that will take it to Mars are currently in Florida undergoing its final preparations for launch everything's going well and all of us on the science

    00:02:29 team can't wait for its launch later this year and its arrival to Mars next summer I'm Ashwin Vasavada and this has been your building curiosity update