The Rover app, formerly known as Flipora, is a content discovery app that curates users’ interests by using existing information from people and pages they follow. The Rover app is named after the Mars Curiosity Rover, a robot that was designed to scour Mar’s surface for information and samples. Like the Curiosity, the Rover app aims to combine the power of machine learning and the expertise of people to collect data and put it to good use.
The Mars Curiosity Rover is part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission, an exploration program designed for long-term robotic exploration of the red planet. Curiosity was designed to assess the planet to see if it is capable of supporting small life forms like microbes. It is the most ambitious mission that NASA has ever commissioned, which means that there were many obstacles during its operation.
The landing of Curiosity was not as smooth as NASA expected. Because of the Curiosity’s weight, the previous method for landing on Mars was not applicable. Instead of allowing the rover to slowly descend using parachutes, the operators decided to use its rockets for the final landing sequence.
The long and arduous nature of the mission meant that Curiosity would be subjected to wear and tear. The first major problem the NASA team encountered was a computer glitch. Because of this, Curiosity was unable to perform any scientific activities for a few days. Apart from that, the rover’s wheels have also taken significant damage that was not expected to happen so soon.
Even with these issues, Curiosity is still operational and continuing to gather useful data for the scientists back on Earth. Presently, the mission is drilling in some parts of the planet to gather more samples and data from under the surface.
