Meet the Drivers Behind NASA's Mars Rovers

StonyandCher writes "Scott Maxwell must have one of the best IT jobs in the solar system, driving NASA's Mars Rovers. Behind every robot is a driver. He's one of 14 Rover Drivers that work in NASA's California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Maxwell discusses what makes up an average work day, the highlights of the project, how he got the job, and the tools he uses in his work. A great look at the team of dedicated IT workers behind the robots, plotting the every move of NASA's twin robot geologists, Spirit and Opportunity, since they first landed on Mars at the start of 2004."

Comments

Re:Bent brush

[Tablizer]

Who bent the brush?

I find a bigger puzzle in the article: "In late 2006, Opportunity's rock grinder, or rock abrasion tool (RAT), stalled during a grind because an encoder had stopped working. Engineers fixed the problem by writing software to operate the tool without data from the encoder. "So we [have been] able to grind successfully with the device since then," Callas says...Spirit's grinder encoder also stopped working recently, forcing the rover team to implement a similar software fix."

Spirit's rock grinder's diamond heads were all worn out I thought last year. Thus, I thought it could no longer grind at all, only use the rotating brush on rocks. Maybe they mean they applied the same fix to the brush.

Re:IT?

[iiii]

Since when is Aerospace Engineer or Scientist an IT job?

Scott is an IT guy.

I think that being the author of "Linux Core Kernel Commentary" , "the most in-depth guide to the core code of the linux kernel", which was review here on slashdot, gives him a smidge of tech credibility.

And you, mister Anonymous Coward, do you have any similar publications?

Re:Why 14?

[ScottMaxwell]

Why do you need 14 drivers for 2 rovers?

We have at least two rover drivers per rover per day, so in theory, we could get by with as few as four -- as long as nobody takes vacation or gets sick. However, almost all of the rover drivers are part-timers on MER; for career and funding reasons, most people want to have multiple irons in the fire, so we tend to work on more than one project. (And that includes me, though I sometimes wish it didn't. In addition to being the rover driver team lead on MER, I work on ATHLETE and Mars Science Laboratory, and I worked on Phoenix until recently. ATHLETE and MSL are awfully cool rovers, but even so, I miss the days when I worked full-time on MER.)

Also, about a third of the people included in that count don't actually work on MER any more, though they're sometimes called in to consult on tricky days or for anomaly investigations.

Re:Women Drivers?

[ScottMaxwell]

Are there any female drivers

Three: Ashley Stroupe, Tara Estlin, and Julie Townsend.

Incidentally, they're all terrific speakers as well; if you get a chance to go to one of their talks, don't miss it.

Also, an unofficial trainee for the MER rover-driver role is Sharon Laubach, who also worked on the first-ever Mars rover, Sojourner (the Mars Pathfinder rover). Sharon's doing this unofficially because officially she's our boss, but she's awesome at it and loves doing it, so we give her a turn now and then. :-)

and if there are, do they do their makeup in the rear view mirror while driving? (ducking and running for cover)

Ahem. Ask them in person sometime, and see what happens.

Luckily for you, they all have good senses of humor, so you're reasonably likely to escape with your life. Bear in mind that Julie does karate, though. ;-)