NASA's Mars 2020 Rover News: New Explorer To Have 23 'Eyes'
For their next rover mission on Mars, NASA is looking to leverage the huge leaps that camera technology has made since the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. The Mars 2020 mission will feature 23 eyes on NASA's new rover, a big improvement from the Sojourner's three cameras.
Compared to the high-resolution color cameras present in almost every mobile device in 2017, the selection of sensors 20 years ago was decidedly limited. NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission had trouble mounting five cameras on their explorers, and two of them had to be carried by a mast that was raised up from the lander module, as the agency recalled.
That left three cameras available for the first Mars rover, Sojourner. Nowadays, that's the expected number of cameras on any of the flagship cellphones from Samsung, Apple, or Google.
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Camera technology has come a long way since the Mars Pathfinder missions, and NASA is keen to take full advantage by the time the Mars 2020 mission lifts off. The new Mars 2020 rover will have 23 cameras, nearly eight times the number of sensors compared to its predecessor.
Not only will the new rover have more cameras, they will have much higher specs as well. These new sensors will deliver sweeping panorama views, detailed 3D images for scientific use, and color shots to inspire space explorations fans.
"Camera technology keeps improving," Justin Maki, imaging scientist for the upcoming mission, noted in approval. "Each successive mission is able to utilize these improvements, with better performance and lower cost," he added.
The sensors on the new 2020 rover will have more color and 3D imaging features, which will greatly improve the capability of scientists to measure the size of geologic features, even from long distances.
Routinely using 3-D images at high resolution could pay off in a big way," Jim Bell, the main investigator for 2020's Mastcam-Z zoom lenses, noted. "They're useful for both long-range and near-field science targets," he went on to say.
The Mars 2020 mission will take advantage of the red planet's close approach in July to August of 2020.
