Regarding the rover itself:
- Launch date: November 20, 2011
- Landing date: August 6, 2012
- Traveled distance: 560 million kilometers
- Weight: 900 kg (on Earth)
- Length: 2.7 meters
- Driving speed: 90 meters per hour
- Cost: 3.2 billion USD
FORMATION OF THE PROJECT
The idea was conceived by a group of enthusiasts in May 2022 at the Microtela competition while looking at a promotional banner of the KYOCERA AVX company. The discussion led to the topic of capacitors for CURIOSITY and the possibility of creating a functional model of the rover. However, the goals extended beyond just creating a promotional model; it could also become an excellent project for the Robotics subject at the A. Jirásek Lanškroun Elementary School, second stage, and at other elementary and specialized high schools. Already in 2023, ZŠ Dobrovského, Lanškroun, joined the project by forming a group to build the model.
Thanks to the 3D model from NASA's website, a project was created for elementary and high schools, which has four variations, ranging from the simplest model without electronics to the ADVANCED model.
About us
People have always looked to the sky and sought answers to questions such as what the universe is, how we came to be here, what our past was like, what our future holds, but most importantly, is there life somewhere in the universe like on our Earth?
To answer these questions, we need to gather information that can help us paint a picture of our world and address the questions mentioned above. Mars, the fourth planet in our solar system, captivates our curiosity the most. It appears reddish in telescopes, and even in the previous century, people believed that there were Martians, beings similar to humans, on this planet. However, Mars is quite far away, and even the world's best telescopes have not provided any answers to the question of whether there is or has been life on Mars.
The first missions sent to land on Mars were not very successful, as it is a technically challenging task. NASA, learning from previous missions, decided to send a mobile laboratory to Mars named CURIOSITY, with the mission to confirm whether there were conditions for life to exist on Mars in the past. The probe was launched on November 20, 2011, and after just under 8 months (on August 6, 2012), it successfully landed on the planet Mars in Gale Crater.
Why does this interest us so much? It is undoubtedly an amazing adventure, but more importantly, part of the electronics of the robotic rover includes 630 tantalum capacitors manufactured by KYOCERA AVX from Lanškroun! Curiosity has been roaming Mars for over 10 years, even though the planned lifespan of the rover was initially set at 23 months. (The date of writing this article is April 20, 2023.)
YEAR 2023
At the A. Jirásek Lanškroun Elementary School and ZŠ Dobrovského, two more fully functional ADVANCED rovers are under construction. Enthusiastic teams led by Mr. Ivo Obra and Mr. Miroslav Klimoš are building additional machines. We are already looking forward to what we will see at Microtela 2024!