The Curiosity Rover can control its rock-inspecting laser without the help of scientists
For 1400days under the eagle eye of the Nasa’s specialized scientist the curiosity rover has
being wandering over the surface of mars! A software upgrade has now made the work more
convenient for the fully equipped scientists.
It is for the first time in history that the rover now is self-equipped to its work. It examines,
selects, analyses, and then fires the laser beam on the surface rocks all by itself!
The software updated by the scientist can now help them work more independently for about a
distance of 46 miles away for the earth.
The system functions by carefully examining the rocks by the selfie-taking camera. The software
looks over the charge of what the rover is doing n how is it doing!
Using the system, called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science
(AEGIS), it's then able to point its laser at the target selected and fire.
"AEGIS enables these targets to be hit on the first try by automatically identifying them
and calculating a pointing that will center a ChemCam measurement on the target,"
Tara Estlin from Nasa said.
She continued that the autonomy is "particularly useful" when scientists are unavailable
to be at the rover's controls.
"Due to their small size and other pointing challenges, hitting these targets accurately
with the laser has often required the rover to stay in place while ground operators fine
tune pointing parameters," Estlin explained.
This week Nasa will again reveal the details of the rover that will launch for mars in
2020.
