CBS Morning News coverage of the Mars Rover Parker Brothers Concepts built for Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and NASA.Created by Parker Brothers Concepts, the rover — which looks nothing like the actual vehicles that have trundled over Mars’ surface, 34 million miles away — will promote Nasa’s “summer of Mars” to teach young people about its efforts to land humans on Earth’s neighbouring world.
source/image: ParkerBrosConcepts
The concept vehicle will never cruise the dunes of Mars but Nasa believes “one or more of its elements could make its way into a rover astronauts will drive on the red planet”.
source/image: ParkerBrosConcepts
The space agency’s next robotic rover is due to touch down in 2020, to “search for signs of past microbial life and collect core samples for a potentially future return to Earth”.
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Driving this Rover is an electric motor which is powered by solar panels and a 700-volt battery. The cockpit has been designed for four people and is equipped with a radio and navigation provided by the Global Positioning System.
The chunky concept rover is 3.3 meters tall, 8.5 meters long, and 4.3 meters wide. On its six equally chunky wheels, the rover weighs 2.7 tons. It is certainly not a flimsy vehicle, but despite its heft, it can reach speeds up to 110 km/h — though it probably wouldn’t travel faster than 24 km/h on Mars.
