These four wheel drives are not your average petrol guzzling kind , but are kind off elite and take on special terrain surfaces like mars and the moon. Since curiosity landed on mars there is abuzz around these crazy techo wizz vehicles that can do more than pull out rabbit from hats.
Check out some cool SPACE AGE Four wheel drives
Curiosity’s Navcams will begin taking one-megapixel stereo pictures 360 degrees around the rover. These cameras have medium-angle, 45-degree fields of views and could resolve the equivalent of a golf ball lying 82 feet (25 meters) away. T
The cameras on these bad boy can take color pictures and even 3D video
You see that Box attached on top behind the cam , it can use its laser to burn holes real quick upto a depth of 25 feet to identify chemical properties
Watch NASA TV
Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory Launch
Spacecraft: Mars Science Laboratory, Curiosity Rover
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 41
Launch Date: Nov. 26, 2011
Launch Time: 10:02 a.m. EST
SOME OTHER COOL FACTS ON CURIOSITY
BUDGET:2.5 Billion
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 566 Million KMS and counting
GOAL:TO SEARCH FOR ESSENTIAL SIGNS OF LIFE CARBON NITROGEN, PHOSPOROUS SULPHUR AND OXYGEN.
Chinese mars Rover prototype
Chinese researchers from Shanghai institute unveiled a prototype lunar rover which is in the ruinning to be selected by China’s space authority for the country’s first moon mission in 2012
Ref: http://cache.wists.com/thumbnails/fef1c-orig
The robot is designed to move much faster than NASA’s robots as it is capable of traveling 100 meters in one hour. China and the U.S. are in a race to put a man on the Moon after 2015
Lama Russian Marsokhod Rover
Lama is a Marsokhod rover built by VNII Transmach in St Petersburg, Russia. It was bought by Alcatel Space Industries in 1995, and has been lent to LAAS in 1996.
Its got a few modifications since with AC/DC converters box that feed the motors and instruments or charges the batteries located inside the wheels. A fiber-optic gyrometer replaces the compass, and a differential carrier-phase GPS.
NASA’s Lunar Chariot
NASA’s Lunar Chariot, which costs a reported $2 million to build but a top speed of only 15 mph.
View images of the lunar truck.
View video of the lunar truck. Windows Media | Real Player
Other than these spiffy rovers and moon riders there have been few others that have been developed and also a few still being developed or modified which includes the”JPL Blue Rover prototype 1987 Moon Mars”
Ref:http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/mige=311
and the “SOVIET Lunokhod-1 Moon Rover” as below