[meteorite-list] Strong Robotic Arm Extends From Next Mars Rover (Curiosity)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:06:08 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201009162106.o8GL68eC016269_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-301

Strong Robotic Arm Extends From Next Mars Rover
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 16, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been exercising its
robotic arm since last month, when the arm was first fastened to the rover.

In the long run, watch for this long and strong arm to become the
signature apparatus of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory. After landing in
August 2012, the mission will rely on it for repeated research
activities. One set of moves crucial to the mission's success has never
been tried before on Mars: pulling pulverized samples from the interior
of Martian rocks and placing them into laboratory instruments inside the
rover.

Engineers and technicians are putting the arm through a range of motions
this month in the clean room where Curiosity is being assembled and
tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"We're fine-tuning the ability to make the arm go exactly where we want
it to go," said JPL's Brett Kennedy, cognizant engineer for the robotic
arm. "Next, we'll start pushing on things with the arm."

The arm can extend about 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) from the front of the
rover body. Still to be added: the turret at the end that holds a
percussive drill and other tools weighing a total of about 33 kilograms
(73 pounds).

"This arm is strong, but still needs to move accurately enough to drop
an aspirin tablet into a thimble," Kennedy said.

The titanium arm has two joints at the shoulder, one at the elbow and
two at the wrist. Each joint moves with a cold-tolerant actuator,
custom-built for the mission. The tools to be wielded by the arm include
a magnifying-lens camera; an element-identifying spectrometer; a rock
brush; and mechanisms for scooping, sieving and portioning samples. The
mission is designed to operate on Mars for a full Martian year, which
equals about two Earth years.

MDA Information Systems Inc.'s Space Division in Pasadena built and
tested the arm, incorporating actuators from Aeroflex Corp., Plainview,
N.Y. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for the NASA
Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about the
mission, visit http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ .

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-301
Received on Thu 16 Sep 2010 05:06:08 PM PDT