From the technical perspective, what lessons has the team learned from rovers? Will this influence the design of future planetary rovers like Mars Science Laboratory?
Dr. Stroupe: That is a very tough question to answer because we have learned a lot. We have really learned much more about the challenges of driving, and what works well on different types of terrain. We have also learned how to drive aging rovers that don’t have full capabilities anymore – this is really an entirely new field of robotics because here on Earth we just fix them when they break. Unfortunately most of these lessons are too late to incorporate into our next rover, which is already well into production. But these will help us operate MSL and will be factored into future mission designs.
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