Do rovers need a specific trenching tool?

Do rovers need a specific trenching tool?, Dead wheel works, but designed scoop would be better

Floyd View Member Profile	Dec 2 2007, 07:46 PM Post #1
Member Group: Members Posts: 948 Joined: 4-September 06 From: Boston Member No.: 1102	The stuck wheel has been key to most of Spirit's most important discoveries. Should future rover designs include a scoop which can be dragged behind the rover to turn over the soil? It could be on an arm with just one motor/degree of freedom--up or down. The scoop/plow could be on a flexible arm so if it snagged a rock, it would deflect away. Since everything on mars is covered with a layer of dust, you need something to continuously trench to find sulfates, silica or the next unexpected thing. The arm could be very light if you had a little scoop/rake at the end of a flexible fiberglass pole. Maybe you could add some type of simple sensor to the scoop to determine the crude spectral properties of the freshly exposed soil. Lots of possibilities. What do you think--is a scoop/plow/rake a worthwhile rover tool? What is your design? -------------------- Floyd

Posts in this topic

Floyd Do rovers need a specific trenching tool? Dec 2 2007, 07:46 PM

mike A simpler design would be to have the scoop hangin... Dec 2 2007, 09:23 PM

SpaceListener My philosophy is that an "Space hand" is... Dec 3 2007, 12:56 AM

edstrick I have been frustrated the entire MER mission, sin... Dec 3 2007, 05:31 AM

djellison QUOTE (edstrick @ Dec 3 2007, 05:31 AM) B... Dec 3 2007, 09:34 AM

ElkGroveDan QUOTE (djellison @ Dec 3 2007, 01:34 AM) ... Dec 4 2007, 04:02 PM

Shaka How deep a furrow? Edit: This proves it. nprev an... Dec 3 2007, 06:18 AM

nprev Ed, man...take a pill! Understand you're ... Dec 3 2007, 06:18 AM

edstrick DJEllison: " We got some fairly good trenches... Dec 4 2007, 11:02 AM

djellison I just don't see it working - I don't see ... Dec 4 2007, 11:22 AM

hendric QUOTE (djellison @ Dec 4 2007, 05:22 AM) ... Dec 4 2007, 07:28 PM

ilbasso and don't forget that they were trenching with... Dec 4 2007, 04:49 PM

centsworth_II But it was Spirit's stuck wheel that really sh... Dec 4 2007, 06:05 PM

algorimancer I like the plow idea. However, I did a fair amoun... Dec 4 2007, 07:30 PM

Floyd algorimancer--It all depends upon the size of the ... Dec 4 2007, 08:00 PM

Aussie Given the weight budget I feel that any needs anal... Dec 4 2007, 11:47 PM

Floyd Weight is critical in the cost benefit analysis. D... Dec 5 2007, 12:43 AM

Astro0 Perhaps we could just employ the Swiss version of ... Dec 5 2007, 02:33 AM

CryptoEngineer QUOTE (Astro0 @ Dec 4 2007, 09:33 PM) Per... Dec 6 2007, 04:58 PM

David QUOTE (CryptoEngineer @ Dec 6 2007, 04:58... Dec 6 2007, 06:46 PM

Aussie Now that is really cool! Dec 5 2007, 03:49 AM

edstrick I'm lauging so hard I can't see what I... Dec 5 2007, 09:37 AM

edstrick What we need is to change the labor laws to make M... Dec 7 2007, 08:58 AM

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