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Students Design RoverA team works on a model Mars craft for a NASA competition.
Aerospace engineering students here are developing a machine they hope will one day explore Mars.
A four-member student team, Astronautics Anonymous, will be one of two teams from the university to present its rover design, a two-seat vehicle for humans to explore outer space terrain, in hopes that NASA might develop the model.
Students will present their ideas Thursday and Friday in the Texas Space Grant Consortium Design Challenge at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The presentation will include an illustration of the rover, which they named "Project Wanderer." The team with the most elaborate and effective design could have its model built by NASA.
"We're designing a vehicle that would be used for exploration and to get around the martian environment," team leader Mark Yebra said. "We're trying to make it lighter than the lunar rover that is used on the moon."
The group created a design that allows the rover to be rechargeable with sufficient lighting and power for night driving. It will be able to climb over 12-inch boulders and climb a 10-degree slope for one mile.
The team sat around a computer Monday in Woolf Hall to discuss the possible steering mechanisms and a lightweight frame.
Aerospace engineering junior Nick Crous said a plastic
more: www.theshorthorn.com/archive/2005... (115)
March 29, 2005 | Viewed 20,700 time(s)
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