OK, this fairy tale has nothing to do with space, but it came to mind when NASA announced the next evolution of their rover for the NASA Mars 2020 mission that will have more eyes on the red planet than any rover before it, 23 to be exact.
The Mars Cameras
When NASA’s Mars Pathfinder first touched down in 1997, it only had five cameras. The advancement in camera technology has seen a lunar leap, even the latest smartphones can produce higher resolution than past rover cameras. The cameras will have will have the ability to create sweeping panoramas, reveal obstacles, study the atmosphere, and assist science instruments. In addition, they will be the first to capture its decent onto another planet. There will also be a camera inside the rover to study samples as they are gathered and “left on the surface for collection by a future mission.”
20/20 Vision
Even the optometrist will be impressed with this rover’s eyesight. The Mastcam-Z (Z stands for zoom) stereoscopic cameras will be helpful in examining geologic features and scouting for samples at a long distances, and can support more 3-D images, which will be ideal for examining geologic features and scouting potential samples.
Mars in Color
Previous rover cameras only had the ability to product 1-megapixel images in black and white. Today, the cameras will have the ability to acquire high-resolution, 20-megapixel color images. In comparison, the new iPhone X camera is 12 MP and the front facing is 7 MP. In addition, the lenses will also have a wider field of view, which means less time panning, snapping pictures, stitching them together and a reduction in motion blur while the rover is on the move.
Waiting for Download
All this upgrading is awesome but what about beaming all that data back to Earth? To deal with the upload/download, the rover will have the capabilities on board to compress the data and communicate with orbiting spacecraft to send 3-D imaging, color, and even high-speed video, back to Earth faster. NASA plans to use existing spacecraft already in orbit at Mars, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, and the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter, as relays for the Mars 2020 mission, which will support the cameras during the rover’s first two years. Read more about space travel at TechCo Credit for rover: NASA/JPL-Caltech and NASA
