Mars 2019: The Red Planet's Next Rover
NASA's next Mars rover won't just explore the Red Planet; it will, the space agency hopes, make it so a little bit of Mars might make it to Earth. Known as Mars 2020, the upcoming rover will hunt for signs of habitable environments on Mars while searching for signs of past microbial life. The robotic traveler will also cache a series of samples that can be returned to Earth with a future mission. The mission is currently slated to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in July or August 2020, when Earth and Mars are positioned to require the least amount of power for interplanetary travel. It is scheduled to land in February 2021, with an initial mission duration of at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth-days. The car-sized rover is about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.2 meters tall). At 2,314 lbs. (1,050 kilograms), it weighs less than a compact car.
The third generation Range Rover finally became the vehicle we all knew it should have been. Chronic underfunding had starved the latter-day first generation models of development and the second-generation car, whilst much improved, never had the coherence of design a winning model needs to succeed, being patchy in all round ability. The third generation model, on the other hand, was bankrolled to a large degree first by BMW and latterly by Ford, two big corporations who certainly know a thing or two about building quality vehicles. It shows. Magnificent, imperious and with genuine presence, this version of the Range Rover did away with the cheap plastics, shoddy styling and the surprisingly amateurish parts-bin feel of previous models. Here is a car that feels like an off-road Bentley. Used car examples are starting to appear in meaningful numbers and prices look tempting. The story behind the third generation Land Rover couldn鈥檛 have been scripted any better if a crack team of tabloid hacks had been set to work on it.
These engines couple to a six-speed automatic transmission. So fuel economy is estimated to rise to 30%. Mpg numbers weren't released, but compared to the 14 mpg city/20 mpg highway of today's Explorer, the new 4-cylinder's would be around 18 mpg city/26 mpg highway. It is designed for 6 passengers and the four-cylinder could tow about 2,000 lbs while the V6 can tow 5,000 lbs. There is a possibility that the 3.5-liter Ecoboost of 355-hp could be delivered in the future, because there are no V8s available. The Explorer will have a unibody structure just like the Lincoln MKS, the Ford Flex or the Ford Taurus with independent rear and front suspensions. The V6 model rides on all wheels, a technology developed with Land Rover. The adjustment of engine behavior to terrain conditions is accomplished by means of a knob on the console. It can adjust the car's transmission shifts, throttle tip-in, calibrations for traction and stability systems.
My intent was to clean up the frame and replace the decking at the same time as I did the transmission. But once the decking was stripped away and I got a good look at the frame I realized there would be no new transmission for the Nissan. The frame work I'd done four and five years ago, in 2009 and 2011, had managed to last alright, but there was new rust in different places, while the cab was also rusted out at the rockers. I realized that a new transmission was not going to be such a good investment. I sold the truck for scrap, then looked for a replacement. Both Aimee and I were a little sad the day the wrecker came. We've had this truck for a long time, and gotten a lot of useful service out of it, but all good trucks come to an end (unless they are Land Rovers). The knowledge that the frame was gone should have made me feel better about burning up the transmission, but didn't.
