ALL SCI-FI

Eadie · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 1670

There have been several Mars landers and rovers over the years. One of these was the British lander Beagle 2, named after Charles Darwin's ship, HMS Beagle. It was launched by the ESA in 2003. When it arrived at Mars all signals were lost and it was assumed to have crashed. It was officially declared lost in February 2004.

Remember the old saying "Never assume. You make an ASS of U and ME"? Well, that applied here!

It's fate remained a mystery until it was announced in January 2015 that Beagle 2 had been located intact on the surface of Mars in a series of images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE instrument. The images suggest that two of the spacecraft's four solar panels failed to deploy, blocking the spacecraft's communications antenna. Beagle 2 is the first British and first European probe to achieve a soft landing on Mars.

So just where on Mars are the different craft? Here (North is at the top):

Bud Brewster · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:58 pm Post subject:

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Here's an interesting idea that just occurred to me.

What if NASA sent a "service robot" to Mars that was capable of traveling around fast enough to reach all the landers and rovers shown on the map above in a reasonable length of time. The machine would have appendages with "hands" and tools so that it could be remotely controlled to make repairs to the various landers and rovers when necessary.

In the case of Beagle 2, the service robot could deploy those two solar panels to get that puppy up and running. And I'm sure there are other Mars landers which could be restored to active service using the service robot.

What do you think.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Gord Green · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 3:21 pm Post subject:

Sounds like a great idea, but there could be a problem with the time lag in communicating with Mars.

That's why as it is now the rovers only move a few feet a day, as their commands take up to 40 minutes to arrive after being sent from Earth. Then it can take another 40 minutes for the results to be received by control on Earth.

Your "ServiceBot" either must have an AI capability or be controlled from an orbiting manned station.

Either way, it's a great idea!

Pye-Rate · Starship Navigator Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 598

Equip it with a Google self driving system, autopilot and mapping software and it can go where no robot has gone before. Once at a river it can download repair instructions.
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The road to tomorrow runs through yesterday.