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posted by
cmn32480
on Friday July 22 2016, @10:13PM
from the frickin'-rovers-with-frickin'-laser-beams dept.
from the frickin'-rovers-with-frickin'-laser-beams dept.
So we've been blasting lasers at the poor rock-tizens of Mars from the Curiosity Rover for a while now. This is on the humans, as we decide remotely what to blast. However, according to Space.com, the Rover have now been trained to blast rocks all on its own volition. There's a reason for this as stated in the article, however one can't help but wonder if there would eventually be an "Ooops" moment where is would blast something significant by mistake when its herders aren't around.
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(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Saturday July 23 2016, @12:12AM
As a person who works with Industrial lasers, both fiber and lamp pumped YAG, the rover does not have a laser of significant size. The pulse width is 5μs with a peak power of 10MW/mm2 and a spot size of 0.2-0.6mm. The total power per pulse is about 14mJ. To weld metals, our pulse power is typically 5-10J. Continuous wave fiber lasers can emit many kW, ours is only 4kW. That thing is devastating. Can punch through ~6mm steel in about a second.