Questions tagged [rovers]

Questions about vehicles sent to extraterrestrial bodies, generally for use in data collection.

From Wikipedia:

A rover (or sometimes planetary rover) is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other celestial body.

Rovers are usually unmanned, with the only exception being the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle which was used by six of the Apollo astronauts on three missions (Apollo 15, 16, 17). The first successful unmanned rover mission was sent to the Moon in 1970 by the former Soviet Union, and there are several current examples of rovers on the Moon and Mars.

This tag is appropriate for any questions related to the past, present or future rover missions to any celestial body. This can include the history, science, technology, and management of the vehicles.

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How do rovers brake/decelerate?

Going by known record the humans have, over the last few decades, started to look around in the Solar System. Apart from astronomy, and allied sciences - there have been space landing missions to study the various planets in-situ e.g. the Apollo…
Everyone
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Do the Mars rovers have to be stationary to turn?

I saw a video of the mars rover curiosity turning in place. It seemed really stable by turning its wheels it was able to easily reorient itself even on a slope while not moving forward. This made me think back to a lot of the odd track patterns in…
Magic Octopus Urn
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Have any lunar probes used a cold shield?

I was reading this question and wondered if there has ever been a design idea which could shield a rover from the 14 day heat and cold cycle when on the surface of the moon. I was imagining some sort of dome-like structure which is retractable or…
Magic Octopus Urn
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Which rover(s) didn't have wheels?

The question Wheels vs. tracks for rovers and Does new technology make it advantageous to have walking rovers? ask about the possible use of treads or legs instead of wheels on rovers from a speculative point of view. But which rover already on…
uhoh
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Have any two rovers launched from different crafts functioned in visible distance of each other?

Have any two rovers, launched on different spacecrafts, ever encountered each other and photographed the other?
Evan Carroll
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