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The rover on Mars

On Mars you cannot drive live: by the time you see the obstacle, the rover has already hit it. Up there the rover gets the list of the day’s instructions, and you write it.

A command takes3 to 22 minutesto get up there, at the speed of light
To find out how it went6 to 45 minutesthe trip there, plus the answer coming back
A day on Mars24.7 hoursand instructions are sent one day at a time
The missions

Mission 1 of 5. The rover has just rolled off the lander and is facing east. The sample is three squares away: take the rover there and analyze it.

  • the rover
  • sample to analyze
  • boulder: you crash into it
  • sand: you get stuck in it

The commands
The day’s program

No commands yet. Choose above, and you will see them line up here.

0 commands. The minimum is 4.

Why a rover is programmed instead of driven

Between Earth and Mars there are 34 million to 249 million miles, depending on where the two planets are along their orbits. Radio travels at the speed of light, and nothing goes faster: a command takes 3 to 22 minutes. With a joystick you would see the boulder a quarter of an hour after the rover hit it.

That is why a rover is not driven: it is programmed. On the ground, engineers prepare the list of instructions for one day, check it all together, and then send it up in a single message. If there is a mistake in the list, the rover carries it out anyway.

Real rovers decide part of that list by themselves: they photograph the ground ahead and choose where to put their wheels. Here that part is up to you.

The card: the Mars rovers · The card: Olympus Mons

The numbers come from the NASA Planetary Fact Sheet, line by line.