Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the Mars Rover Opportunity's Instrument Deployment Device.
Operator
Honeybee Robotics
Manufacturer
Honeybee Robotics
Instrument type
Installation
Function
Grinding and brushing
Began operations
February 6, 2004
Website
Description from manufacturer's site
Properties
Mass
0.685 kilograms
Dimensions
7 cm in diameter and 10 cm long
Power consumption
30 watts
Host spacecraft
Spacecraft
Mars Exploration Rovers
The Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) is a grinding and brushing installation on NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B), which landed on Mars in January 2004. It was designed, developed and continues to be operated by Honeybee Robotics LTD, a developer of specialized robots, automated technologies and related systems.
The RAT was the first machine to gain access to the interior of rocks on another planet. The RAT has a mass of 0.685 kilograms (1.51 pounds), is 7 cm (3 in) in diameter and 10 cm (3.9 in) long, about the size of a soda can. It uses a diamond dust and resin wheel spinning at 3000 rpm to drill a 45 mm diameter by 5 mm deep bore hole in martian rocks. The RAT then uses two brushes to sweep dust from the bore holes for closer scientific inspection. Its average power consumption is 30 watts.[1]
There are five other instruments aboard both rovers, these are the Pancam (a camera), Mini-TES (an infrared spectrometer) for sensing targets at a distance, a microscopic imager, a Mössbauer spectrometer and an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. The RAT provides these instruments with a smooth, clean surface from which they make more accurate observations.
The RAT was first used by Spirit on its 34th sol (February 6, 2004).[2] It was held up to the rock Adirondack, whereby it scraped to a depth of 2.85 mm (0.112 in) over the course of three hours. Since then it has been used on numerous Martian rocks by both MER rovers.
The RAT was originally controlled from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, but is now[when?] run by Honeybee Robotics LTD from their New York headquarters. The RAT is the first product of Honeybee Robotics LTD's to be sent into space by NASA.
The cable shield of each RAT is made from aluminum recovered from the World Trade Center site after the September 11 attacks.[3]
The RAT has been used to grind a hole in the rock Adirondack. The hole is approximately 2.65 millimeters deep.
^"Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT)". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
The RockAbrasionTool (RAT) is a grinding and brushing installation on NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B), which...
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smoother, making it more suitable for the RockAbrasionTool (aka "RAT"). Spirit made a small depression in the rock, 45.5 millimetres (1.79 in) in diameter...
be it an overhanging rock face or on a different planet, is almost trivial. (The Mars Exploration Rovers carry a RockAbrasionTool, which is logically...
outcrop surface to Figure 5. However, Opportunity's RockAbrasionTool abraded this surface. Such abrasions showed that (a) the sediment layers are very soft...
rocks with its panoramic camera. On Sol 30, Opportunity used its RockAbrasionTool (RAT) for the first time to investigate the rocks around El Capitan...
outcrop surface to Figure 14. However, Opportunity's RockAbrasionTool abraded this surface. Such abrasions showed that (a) the sediment layers are very soft...
for a short time in the early history of the planet. Because the RockAbrasionTool (RAT) found it easy to grind into the bedrocks, it is thought that...
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for a short time in the early history of the planet. Because the RockAbrasionTool (RAT) found it easy to grind into the bedrocks, it is thought that...
and was part of the team that worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers RockAbrasionTool. As the collaborative team Robot Clothes, Powderly and artist Michelle...
blades, bladelets, flakes), along with methods (e.g., abrasion, scraping) to form the bone tools. The process occurred locally and the type of lithic implements...
additional drawback of twisted construction is that every fibre is exposed to abrasion numerous times along the length of the rope. This means that the rope can...
can be brushed off, while another needed to be ground off by the RockAbrasionTool (RAT). There are a variety of rocks in the Columbia Hills, some of...
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