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

Women Drivers?

[coolmoose25]

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

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. ;-)

Oh

[niceone]

That sort of driver.

In soviet russia...

[brentonboy]

Martian robots drive YOU!

No tailgating

[Frequency Domain]

Normal safe driving recommends the "2 second rule". These guys have to allow, what, 20 minutes?

Good job, Scott & Company

[flaming error]

> We make sure that the commands we're sending to the Rover
  > will do the right thing in the face of all imaginable
  > contingencies. We review this final cut at the day's
  > commands -- twice!

They're obviously getting this done damn well, to keep these machines going so long after their expiration date. These JPL folks do NASA and humanity a great credit.

Kudos.

Bent brush

[Cally]

So... who bent the brush? ;)

What?!? No .Net ?!?

[Black-Man]

Java, Python, Perl and Shell scripts are used to program this thing? I just can't understand a development team shunning XP Pro and .NET. The shelf life was suppose to be 1 year - isn't that about right for a .Net application before permanent and complete failure??

Pan-Galactic Traffic Citation

[hullabalucination]

Dear Motorist:

You have received this traffic citation, on this sol of 13 Smoogna, 1126, issued by the city of Oxia Palus in the county of Planitia, Mars, for the following indicated violations.

__ Following too closely to a boulder.

__ Failure to light headlamps within 5 sols of sundown.

__ Parallel parking on inside slope of crater.

__ Driving in planet-wide reduced visibility conditions without running lights.

__ Failure to signal turn to JPL.

You will find information on the back of this form concerning fees and places to pay your fine. Thank you, and remember: "Unsafe driving will make your fellow Martian motorists see red."

Should have just used LOGO to drive them...

[PainBreak]

Forward 4000 Wait 2400 Left 80 Wait 2400 Shit...where's my turtle? Guys?...

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?

This guy is not IT, don't insult him like that.

[StickyWidget]

This guy is not IT, don't insult him like that. This was an systems engineering job, taking many different disciplines like mechanical design, controls, computer programming, networking, electrical engineering, and computations/algorithms and rolling it into one. Now, he seems like more of an operations engineer, as he is running what is essentially operations, support, and maintenance for the rover. NOT IT.

Don't kid yourselves, IT is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to tech jobs. The vast majority of IT workers debug problems with Windows security profiles, or check that a port is open on a firewall, or make sure that some top level manager can view his porn through the corporate Web filters. Higher level IT jobs involve putting in a network switch, or maybe making a web site to streamline a business process. Half the network engineers I meet don't know what negative voltage is, and most of the programmers look at assembler and see gibberish. Trained monkeys could do the job if they didn't throw $hit everywhere.

This guy is not a code monkey, he is not a TCP/IP whore, he's an engineer and a scientist. He works on systems that would make an IT guy say, "I only know how to configure Cisco, I don't know how to do that". Or maybe "You can make code turn wheels at a certain speed? WOW!".

Best learn it now, IT (non-management of course) in 5 years is going to be one step above assembly line worker, designated paper pusher, and secretary.

~Sticky
/Go ahead, mod it down. It doesn't make it any less true.

You're right

[ScottMaxwell]

I *do* have a great job ... and I also read Slashdot. :-)

Almost as cool, but far better at parties...

[bughunter]

I was at a party recently and met John Callas, the MER Program Manager.

I shouldn't have tried to outdo him by bragging to the hostess that I was the only real "rocket scientist" present. (I build target missiles that get shot down by the MDA.)

A short while later, John used his cellphone to impress a young lady who wandered over to chat him up. He opened up his Razr and showed her how he gets 12-hour updates from each of the rovers via SMS, complete with maps.

The dude gets texted from Mars four times a day.

I had to concede.

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.