Where the Streets have No Name


Curiosity

Thursday 18 April 2013, 6.30 - 8.30pm
The Chemistry Centre, London W1J 0BA

Mars is currently a hostile environment to humans (and to rovers as well).  Last August 5th the Mars Science Laboratory rover name Curiosity has successfully landed at Gale Crater.  How do you build, deliver and operate a one-ton rover on a place that is so far away?

What are the challenges of driving and operating this rover?  How do we plan the daily activities? How does the rover communicates with Earth?  Paolo Bellutta, one of the drivers for the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, told us what we have been doing so far on Mars and where we are going next.
 
Paolo Bellutta is a member of the MER and MSL teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  He has been a rover driver for nine years for the MER Spirit and Opportunity vehicles and now is a rover driver for MSL Curiosity.

This lecture was chaired by Quentin Cooper, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Material World, the UK's most listened-to science programme. His Twitter blurb says he: “Talks, intermittently listens. Broadcasts, intermittently has listeners. Fond of science, likes arts, loves cheese.” You too can follow him on twitter @materialworld

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #RSCpubliclectures

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