Marsokhod is a Russian

Mars rover A Mars rover is a motor vehicle designed to travel on the surface of Mars. Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny pos ...

project that was intended for use in the

Mars-96 Mars 96 (sometimes called Mars-8) was a failed Mars mission launched in 1996 to investigate Mars by the Russian Space Forces and not directly related to the Soviet Mars probe program of the same name. After failure of the second fourth-stage b ...

mission. Instead it was used for experiments into improving rover technology. Prototypes of the Marsokhod rover were taken from Russia to the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

, where they were jointly developed by the US and Russia. This led to the development of a 'virtual environment control system', which meant the rover could be controlled remotely via an interface on a PC. Since the development of this control interface the rover has been deployed in simulations. These experiments provide insight for robotics researchers and scientists preparing for planetary surface exploration.Field Experiments with the Ames Marsokhod Rover
/ref> File:Marsokhod5.gif, File:Marsokhod7.gif,

References

Links

Interview with Carol Stoker from Planetary Systems Branch

Marsokhod: Autonomous navigation tests on a Mars-like terrain

Small Marsokhod configuration
{{mars-stub Mars rovers