A 9:
 |
We had done a year's worth of testing before landing. Of course, we
had a seven-month cruise to Mars, which gave us a bunch of time. But we
would test in various locations on Earth. One of our favorite places was a
sand-filled room which we called the sand box, with Mars-like sand and
rocks. And in the room was a Lander which was almost identical to the real
Lander, and a duplicate Rover. We had someone we nicknamed the Gremlin, who
would set up rocks and challenging terrain, little hills, difficult to
drive configurations, and we would drive the Rover through the different
terrain.
We were doing those tests many times per week. And I was not allowed to go into
the sandbox until after the test, and I had to perceive that little room
from the perspective of the Lander cameras only, just like we would on the
real mission. That was very useful, because we could see how to interpret
rock sizes and things like that, and how the Rover would drive. What wasn't
very realistic for us, was that we had Earth gravity, and on Mars, the
Rover was subject to less gravity and could drive higher hills, and it was
actually more capable. That was one of the things we had to calibrate: how
it would drive on the unknown Martian surface. We learned that early on, and
kind of iterated how we would drive it. This helped a lot.
|