The remote sensing mast and the camera system on its top are like the neck and head of the Perseverance Mars Rover. This part is one of the two most iconic visual identities of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. The other one is its legs and wheels, of course. So when you see them, you will immediately realize that you are seeing a recent Mars Rover. However, since the Perseverance Mars Rover is designed based on the Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity rover configuration (the Curiosity Mars Rover), it’s difficult to distinguish them with a quick glance at just their masts.
The mast of the Perseverance Mars Rover has a motor in its bottom used to raise it from horizontal status to vertical after the rover landed on Mars so as to elevate the cameras to the highest position of the Perseverance Mars Rover. After the mast is raised, a 2 DoFs (dimensions of freedom) motor set can rotate the top camera box which hosts all the cameras horizontally and vertically.
The mast on our 1:2 Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica has exactly the same motorized structure as that on the real Perseverance Mars Rover now on the Red Planet. It can raise the mast to vertical status and allow the camera box to change its orientation horizontally and vertically.
We completed the design of the mast on our 1:2 Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica a few months ago but I was too busy to post its progress because we were busy building its 3D printed prototype to test the design of all its parts.
Here are two photos of the mast’s horizontal status and vertical status of our 1:2 Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Replica.
