Student closely watches rover

NASA launched the world's biggest extraterrestrial explorer, nicknamed Curiosity, on Saturday, Nov. 26 and an LBCC student has a unique view of the trip to Mars.

The six-wheeled, one-armed surface explorer is a rover that will travels across the planet Mars gathering samples and examining the climate and geology while looking for any signs of life.

Heidi Hisu Park, a student at LBCC, was selected among 48 other students, who traveled to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. to create a company infrastructure design and develop a prototype of a Mars rover.

Park worked on a prototype rover that employed much of the same technology as Curiosity.

She said, "There are many design similarities in the Curiosity that the prototype used as well, like the rocker boogie system for suspension, the panoramic camera and an RTG system, which is basically a really efficient way to generate power for the rovers."

Unlike other Mars rovers in the past, Curiosity will be powered by plutonium rather than solar energy and will use a special laser that zaps matter into smaller samples that can be analyzed in a mobile laboratory on board.

The Curiosity is also much larger than past rovers and according to NASA, roughly the same size as a small car.

Brian Lee, 19, a biology major at LBCC, said, "I'm glad NASA has new plans to work on Mars and it is really cool that someone at our college had an opportunity to help build a similar vehicle."

Anthony Gonzalez, 21, an English major, said, "I think it's great that we're still trying to explore space and it would be incredible if we found some form of life on Mars."

The mission is costing $2.5 billion and Curiosity will spend two years on Mars looking for evidence and analyzing data.