Published

Lenses Going to Mars

You may be using lenses from the company that is developing them for the 2020 Mars Rover
#hybrid

Share

As we are still in the grips of Apollo 11 mania, it is interesting to note that a company that makes lenses for things that you may be using in your factory—lasers—or are deploying on driver assistance systems—optical and laser sensors—is producing the lenses that are going to Mars, fitted onto the Mars 2020 Rover, an electric vehicle.

 

NASA Mars 2020 Rover

The camera array on the 2020 Mars Rover

 

The lenses have been developed by Jenoptik Light & Optics. There are three types of lenses. First there are navigation lenses, that will be used to capture live video footage. Second, hazard avoidance lenses that will allow the rovor to ID obstacles as well as allow NASA engineers on Earth to watch the movement of the arm that will be used to collect rock and soil The third type is a cache lens, which will verify collection of the samples.

Len development was performed by Jenoptik in a clean room, which is not surprising, but what is undoubtedly different from the ordinary approach is that they had to test it under conditions that would resemble Mars: as in dealing with temperatures as low as -135°C.

The Rover, incidentally, is approximately three meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.2 meters high. Were they to have curbs on Mars: curb weight 2,314 pounds.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Mahindra Automotive in America

    Rick Haas has an impressive automotive resume, having held positions at Ford and Tesla and currently as the president and CEO of Mahindra Automotive North America.

  • Ford Going Fast

    Ford estimates that SUV sales could be half of all retail sales in the U.S. by 2020.

  • 2019 Honda Insight

    One of the things that rarely gets the amount of attention that it should in a typical “car review” is the fact that for a considerable amount of time drivers are not “getting on the throttle” because for a considerable number of drivers, they’re “dwelling on the binders,” a.k.a., sitting with their foot depressed on the brakes, perhaps lifting every now and then in order to nudge forward in traffic.

Gardner Business Media - Strategic Business Solutions