Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer

(Norsk)
Right! The last space-related post, at least for a while, is about the book Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, written by Rob Manning and William L. Simon, where Rob Manning is the Chief Engineer from the book title.

Picture borrowed from Amazon.com

This book gives the reader fascinating insights into what is, in essence, amazing engineering. The fact that they have created a remotely controlled vehicle, launched it into space, landed it on another planet and now have it roaming around doing science is incredible. Kudos to all the people that have worked on Curiosity and those that still work on it.

Manning gives us an in-depth tour through the project, From the beginning until the present (or at least the present when the book was written). He highlights many of the problems they struggled with, and recounts how they overcame them, everything from developing a brand new landing system, scratch that, not just a new landing system but a whole new landing concept, to the difficulties in getting the rock sampling system right. The latter involved both the drilling system as well as the sample delivery system, where the sample is brought from the drill and into the rover's sample processing gear (another engineering marvel). As a matter of fact, Destin of Smarter Every Day even did an episode about the Curiosity drill:

If you like technical stuff, like me, this book is absolutely brilliant! If you are more interested in management stuff, the book also covers some of that, so it is still good. Grab it from you local library if that is your wont, or from places like Amazon / Audible if that is more to your fancy, and have an interesting read, I sure did!

As mentioned, this is the last space-related post in a while, my next project will involve me filming a few snippets, both with a camera and screen-capture, as I plan and design a part that a buddy of mine is going to 3D-print for me and that I am going to put to practical use in my home afterwards. Stay tuned!