this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Man that wheel is so much thinner than I was expecting. I was surprised it was broken at all until I noticed how thin the material is. That looks like it's less than a quarter of an inch of what appears to be rigid material for something about the size of a medium-ish car.
It was just thick enough to hold well past the initial mission time. That means any thicker would have been a waste of materials, weight, and energy. If anything, it was too thick. Every gram counts when bringing objects to space.
It’s thicker than it looks because the rover is much larger than it looks of course proportionally it’s still thin but curiosity is lighter than it looks because it was made for space snd mars is smaller than earth.
It was getting damaged pretty much as soon as they started using it. It's kinda weird they didn't catch something like that in testing on earth? Were the rocks on Mars just that more jagged?
But also I think the wheels are aluminum as well, so very soft metal.
Designing any kind of space vehicle is always a trade off.
The vehicle needs to be light enough to be launched from earth to mars, but durable enough to fulfill its mission goals.
I’m sure if nasa had access to a vehicle that could send an M1 Abram’s sized, solid steel rover to mars, they totally would, but that would probably cost more than a moon mission, and the whole point of rovers is that they’re fairly cheap for the amount of research you can get out of them.
It's lasted this long. I think they made the right decisions. No matter what it is, it's going to be damaged. The goal is to make it still operate despite the damage for as long as possible. The goal isn't to make it last forever, or to never be damaged. The more massive the wheels are the less mass everything else can be, so it's a big trade-off.
It has travelled 32.39 km (20.13 mi) on Mars as of 19 September 2024
Yeah but I recall them having signs of damage early on that they didn't expect to happen.
Yes rocks are more sharp on planets or moons with no or very little atmosphere because erosion by wind/rain forces is reduced.