Atacama Desert (CMU Nomad rover traverse)
Unreviewed draft
This page was built from a teammate-supplied list. The text is teammate-written, unreviewed. Sources pending.
Summary
not provided
Location
- Country
- Chile
- Coordinates
- -23.00, -69.90 (approximate)
- Elevation (m)
- 2000
- Year first used as an analog
- 1997
Terrain and geology
not provided
Climate
not provided
Parameters matched
not provided
Why it is an analog
First long-distance robotic lunar-rover rehearsal.
Key differences: where the analogy breaks down
Air, wind; mid-latitude sun; andesitic gravels.
Experiments done
Carnegie Mellon's Nomad rover completed a ~200 km teleoperated traverse in 1997 to rehearse lunar exploration, testing panoramic telepresence, autonomous navigation and solar power.
Experiments proposed
Long-range autonomous lunar-rover traverses with telepresence; solar-power and battery cycling under clear skies; dust accumulation on optics and panels; navigation over featureless gravel plains.
How to adjust it
Simulant lanes and blasted crater mock-ups; low-sun dawn/dusk operations; dust-loading tests on solar panels.
Access
not provided
Hazards
not provided
Sources
Sources pending (no sources in CSV).
v1 score, percentile and overlap flag
A descriptive lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is not a test, and a high percentile here does not show that this is a good analog.
v1 used this site
No. The nearest v1 site, "atacama salars", is about 177.5 km away.
| Score view | Result | Percentile | Score | Distance to tile (km) | Overlap flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecting Ridge C1, Base | Scored | 89.4 | 15.1 | 10.9 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Landing and mobility | Scored | 95.2 | 17.3 | 10.9 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Power and night | Scored | 89.4 | 11.0 | 10.9 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Base | Scored | 92.4 | 39.4 | 19.5 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Landing and mobility | Scored | 99.2 | 45.0 | 19.5 | In a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Power and night | Scored | 92.4 | 28.6 | 19.5 | Not in a flagged tile |
Overlap flag: whether the tile used for the score is one v1 flagged as stable in its top group across the Monte Carlo runs.
What these scores can and cannot tell you
- This is a lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is descriptive and is not a test of the method.
- A site is matched to the best-scoring tile that passed the gates within the match radius. A different radius would give different numbers.
- Tiles are large compared with most sites, so a score describes the surrounding area, not the site itself.
- Scores exist only for tiles that passed the land-cover and data gates. A gated-out or unscored site has no score, which says nothing about how good an analog it is.
- Percentile is the share of scored tiles in that view with a lower score.
- The Moon score is effectively terrain only. Mars is a low-confidence secondary result.
- v1 failed its negative controls, so a high percentile here does not show that a site is a good analog.
- The ranking is not checked against independent data. Gravity, air, dust and radiation are not scored.
- Sites are compared with views of their own body only.
- Match radius: 20 km, the radius v1 used.