The MER (Mars Exploration Rover) extended mission plans to perform technology demonstration experiments to benefit future Mars flight missions. Visual target tracking technology has been selected as one of the several technologies to be tested during the MER extended mission.
In the current MER (Mars Exploration Rover) baseline, it takes 3 sols or more for the rover to place an instrument on a designated science target that is up to 10 m away. The visual target tracking technology is a key component to reduce the 3-sol operation to a single-sol. The single-sol approach and instrument placement technology is currently being validated in the MSL Focused Technology Instrument Placement Validation Task. In this task, we will integrate the validated Navcam visual target tracking CLARAty software into the MER flight software, and upload it for experiments on Mars.
Won Kim - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mars Technology Program