Can a standard R.C. car work on Mars ?

[kk434]

I keep wondering if a standard radio controlled (hobby car about 1:10 scale) car can work on Mars. During the day it is about 20 celsius (293 K) so it wont freeze for at least a day. Those cars regulary drive in dust and take a few hits so it wont break too fast. It is controlled by radio waves so a strong transmitter will do the job. Since one of these cars costs 200$ you can land a whole armada and let them explore (1 cheap instrument/car). Are there any show stoppers?

 

[markododa]

You will need to insulate it so that it doesn't burn/freeze, make wheels that can handle the temperature, and provide sensors so that you see where you are going, you should also put some energy genetator (solar panel), and scientific instruments. So no, there is no point of puting an armada of R.C. cars, putting an armada of small cheap is on the other hand a really great idea .

 

[believer_since_1956]

I keep wondering if a standard radio controlled (hobby car about 1:10 scale) car can work on Mars. During the day it is about 20 celsius (293 K) so it wont freeze for at least a day. Those cars regulary drive in dust and take a few hits so it wont break too fast. It is controlled by radio waves so a strong transmitter will do the job. Since one of these cars costs 200$ you can land a whole armada and let them explore (1 cheap instrument/car). Are there any show stoppers?

Consumer product would not survive the
1. landing if air bag style, the rover instrumentation was designed and tested to survive condtions harsher than Mars
2. one night temperature = -100C
3. vibration of launch (the Mars Rovers vibration levels was greater the 10's of G range)
4. radiation

 

[JonClarke]

What the others said.

Plus the time lag (up to 40 minutes) would preclude direct PC control.

 

[Skyskimmer]

They would have to be a little somethign more than an rc car. But I think you got somewhat of the right idea. If they get launch costs down by a factor of ten, all other componets in space flight can decrease on a simliar rate, as there's less cost of failure, less money saved in reduction of weight, and more oppourtunites to launch,

 

[JonClarke]

They would have to be a little somethign more than an rc car. But I think you got somewhat of the right idea. If they get launch costs down by a factor of ten, all other componets in space flight can decrease on a simliar rate, as there's less cost of failure, less money saved in reduction of weight, and more oppourtunites to launch,

.

Launch costs are only a small fraction of mission costs which are dominated by that of building spacecraft. They are rarely more than 30% of the mission and for space exploration missions can be as low as 10%. Even if mission costs were free they would not have that big an impact on overal cost.

An RC car on Mars sounds cheap. But by the time you have built one out of materials that can withstand the environment, systems that can operate under martian conditions, equipped with with useful instruments and communications and the neccessary computer hardware and software to operate semi-autonomously (simple RC won't work) it's no longer cheap.

You would end up with something like Sojourner, which was in the RC car size range and carried a minimum payload. That still cost $25 million. And it needed the $265 million Pathfinder mission to land it on Mars and allow it to communicate with Earth.

Return for the money has to be considered also. Sojourner carried an APX, a camera and measured the mechanical and electrical properties of the soil. It travel only 100 m and lasted 84 days. The MERs carry many more instruments, have travelled many km and lasted many years.

The question we need to ask is really: what missions are best carried out by micro rovers like Sojourner and which by larger ones like MER?