FIDO science payload simulating the Athena Payload

Abstract

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Field Integrated Development and Operations rover (FIDO) emulates and tests operational rover capabilities for advanced Mars rover missions, such as those originally planned for the Mars Surveyor 2001 Rover and currently planned for the Athena Payload on the Mars Exploration Rovers scheduled for launch in 2003. This paper describes FIDO's science instrument payload, which is fully integrated with rover hardware and software. Remote science teams visualize instrument suite data and generate FIDO commands using the Web Interface for Telescience. FIDO's instrument suite has been used in terrestrial laboratory and field tests to simulate Mars operations, to train Mars scientists, and to improve Mars rover mission science operations protocols. The payload includes a deck-mounted, stowable mast that is deployed for acquisition of stereo imaging and spectral reflectance data. The mast head houses Pancam, Navcam (the navigation camera stereo pair), and the Infrared Point Spectrometer (IPS). Pancam is a three-band, false-color infrared (0.65, 0.74, 0.855 μm) stereo imaging system. The three wavelengths were chosen to yield information on the ferric nature of observed minerals. IPS acquires spectral radiance information over the wavelengths from 1.3 to 2.5 μm (spectral resolution ∼13 cm-1). A 4-degree-of-freedom arm is included on the front of FIDO. The arm end effector is the mounting point for a Color Microscopic Imager and an 57Fe Mössbauer Spectrometer. FIDO also carries a MiniCorer, which is an Athena prototype rock drill that can acquire 0.5-cm-diameter by up to 1.7-cm-long cores.