The 900 kilogram mars rover Curiosity took damage to its aluminum wheels back some during a mission in 2013. The rocks on mars are sharp and dangerous, showing that they can even break apart the wheels. These rocks plus the harsh winds and dust storms, the Curiosity would be in deep in trouble. However, using smaller robots, different technology and new tactics we can see why and how these wheels broke, and how we can fix them. It could be because of the wheel pattern and design, a fatal design flaw or just as simple as the thickness of that aluminum tire. Every wheel on the rover has one dedicated motor for itself and can turn a full 360 degrees with six wheels in total. The two wheels on the front of the rover can turn in this very way. …show more content…
On the other side of things, mother nature on Mars never sleeps. Heavy winds could break though many things, especially items. This could explain why Mars rover Curiosity could of taken heavy damage on wheels. Much worst could of happened, however, as the rocks could of possibly broke or distorted the camera in many ways, making it a lost rover. Dust storms on Mars were shown as horrifying events that involved large clouds of dirt, rocks, and other things picked up by the storms. Some early scenes show lightning and thunder clouds as the cloud billows up from the ground creating the storms. The winds in these storms can be dangerous, even lethal toward the rover, swooping it up never to be seen again. Anyway, the surface of mars is flat at some parts, but can still be very rocky with lots of steep hills, or just sand dunes from passing storms. The land also changes from the storms as well, so it seems that every day Mars has a new landscape. Some mountains on Mars can also be active volcanic ones, causing those to be dangerous spots for Curiosity. The gravity is also very different, being sixty two percent less than Earths gravity. According to Matt Williams from universetoday.com, "But one big difference is that the gravity on Mars’ surface is much lower than it is here on Earth – 62% lower to be precise. At just 0.38 of the Earth standard, a person who weighs 100 kg on Earth would weigh only 38 kg on Mars. This difference in surface gravity is due to a number of factors – mass, density, and radius being the foremost. Even though Mars has almost the same land surface area as Earth, it has only half the diameter and less density than Earth – possessing roughly 15% of Earth’s volume and 11% of its mass." This means when Curiosity is on Mars, the large 900 kilogram rover should weigh 342 kilograms, still a very large amount of weight but its significantly