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Nanorover To Fetch Asteroid Material
- To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
- Subject: Nanorover To Fetch Asteroid Material
- From: Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 15:30:21 GMT
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- Resent-Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 11:31:32 -0400 (EDT)
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Nanorover to Help Fetch Asteroid Material
By Glen Golightly
Houston Bureau Chief
Sep 29 1999 20:35:15 ET
PASADENA, California - When Ross Jones wants to show off the MUSES-CN rover
mock-up, he pulls it out of a briefcase-sized container.
"The usual reaction of people is that they say it's 'cute,'" said Jones, the
rover project manager.
Even the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner dwarfs the MUSES-CN "nanorover."
Sojourner weighs in at a "hefty" 23 pounds and is about 2-feet long, while
its smaller successor weighs about two pounds and is the size of a cigar
box.
With advances in technology and experience from the Sojourner, the new rover
has better optics and computing power than the Mars rover.
In January 2002, the nanorover will fly aboard the Japanese MUSES-C to
explore the near-Earth asteroid 4660 Nereus. If all goes well, the probe
will return the first samples of an asteroid to Earth.
Full story here:
http://www.space.com/news/planetarymissions/nanorover_990929.html
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