Scientific goals are to search for, and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. Sites targeted appear to have been affected by liquid water in the past.

The design of the suspension system is similar to the Sojourner rover "rocker-bogie" system. However wheels and chassis design are new

Employs aerogel insulator to stay above -40° C during Mars night.

Night temperatures on Mars can drop to -96°C (-140°F).

Rover's WEB operating range (-40° to +40° C). This is achived through the insulated walls of the rover body being gold-painted. Aerogel insulator used inside the WEB and limited use of Heaters.

Six wheel rocker-bogey with four corner steering. Total of ten actuators.

Motor Control via Bang-Bang on/off motor actuation. based on motor's output shaft position. monitored by optical encoders. No variable rate motion is possible.

Modified six wheel rocker-bogey, with two tandem wheel pairs on one end and two steering wheels on other end. Total of eight actuators. Mechanical coupling of tandem wheels can reduce total actuators to six.

Accurate variable rate motion is accomplished with Proportional / Integral / Derivative (PID) motor servoing, Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) of motor currents, and optical encoder monitoring of output shaft position.

Six wheels, each with its own individual motor. The design of the suspension system is similar to the Sojourner rover rocker-bogie system.

Motor control is the same as used by Rocky 7

Custom surface mount board set using radiation hardened components with 80C85 CPU, 100 KIPS

Employs duplicates of Sojourner flight accelerometers and quartz rate sensor. All computer components are commercial off the shelf (COTS). CPU is a Commercial 3U VME, 68060 CPU, 100 MIPS. Some other electronics are custom design, using COTS parts.

All computer components are commercial off the shelf (COTS). Some other electronics are custom design, using COTS parts.

On-board memory and processing capacity is roughly roughly 1000 more than Sojourner.

Black and white CCD cameras, and five laser stripe projectors on front side of vehicle. Quartz rate gyro. Accelerometers (3). Wheel optical encoders. Bump detector switches.

Modified Behavior control navigation algorithm developed for Rocky 4. All other rover and ground station software is new.

Software written in C and assembly in a Unix development environment using a Silicon Graphics
Inventor® based operator interface.

Black and white CCD stereo camera pairs, three pairs total: front, back, and mast. Sun position sensor. Quartz rate gyro. Accelerometers (3). Wheel optical encoders.

Currently uses a version of the Sojourner navigation algorithm, modified to accommodate the different sensors and steering performance of Rocky 7. All other on and off-board software is newly developed.

Rocky 7 uses a Wind River® real-time operating system. Real Time Innovations
ControlShell®, Network Data Delivery System® and on-board stereo correlation software.

Written in C++, C, Lisp software on a Unix development. HTML/Java® based Rover operator interface.

Four B&W Hazcams (Hazard Avoidance Cameras): Mounted on the lower portion of the front and rear of the rover,

Two B&W Navcams (Navigation Cameras):
Mounted on the mast ,these black-and-white cameras use visible light to gather panoramic, three-dimensional (3D) imagery.

Two colour Pancams (Panoramic Cameras):
Stereo pair of cameras mounted on the Rover mast and delivers three-dimensional panoramas of the Martian surface.

One Microscopic Imager:
This monochromatic science camera is mounted on the robotic arm to take extreme close-up pictures of rocks and soil.

Rechargeable NiCad batteries, Six solar panels.

Rover usage about 35W average.

Rechargeable NiCad batteries, Solar array.

Rover usage about 100W average.

Panoramic Camera

Microscopic Imager (MI)

Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES)

Mossbauer Spectrometer (MB)

Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS)

Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT)

Magnet Array

The shorter four degrees-of-freedom (DOF) arm stows against the side the chassis and can dig, dump, grasp rocks, carry one sample, and point an integrated optical spectrometer and its calibration target.

The longer three DOF mast stows in a slot in the solar panel, can raise a stereo camera pair and filter wheels to 1.4 meters above the ground, use these same cameras to visually inspect the entire vehicle, and deploy another 0.5 kg instrument canister to targets in a large area around the rover.

The robotic arm has flexibility through three joints (3 DOF). At the end of the arm is a turret, shaped like a cross. This turret, a hand-like structure, holds various tools that can spin through a 350-degree turning range. The four tools, or science instruments,
on the robotic arm are:
The Microscopic Imager
The Mossbauer Spectrometer
The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer
The Rock Abrasion Tool

The Pancam Mast Assembly stands 1.4 meters from the base of the rover wheel. The pancam mast assembly serves two purposes:
To act as a periscope for the Mini-TES science instrument, and to provide height and a better point of view for the Pancams and the NavCams.