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Mars Pathfinder Microrover

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Abstract

When the Mars Pathfinder (MPF) spacecraft lands on Mars, the Microrover Flight Experiment (MFEX) will be deployed and perform its mission to conduct technology experiments verifying the engineering design, to deploy an alpha proton x-ray spectrometer (APXS) to measure elemental properties of rocks and soil, and to image the MPF lander. In accomplishing this mission the MFEX rover must determine a safe path to goal locations traversing over a poorly known Martian surface. The rover does this mission with a capable mobile platform executing on-board autonomous functions of navigation and hazard avoidance. In this paper we describe the rover, its operational environment and the implementation of the on-board autonomous functions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory—California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, 91109, Pasadena, California, USA

    D. Shirley & J. Matijevic

Authors
  1. D. Shirley
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  2. J. Matijevic
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Shirley, D., Matijevic, J. Mars Pathfinder Microrover. Auton Robot 2, 283–289 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00710795

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00710795

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