What's with the delay?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - 19:00
in Astronomy & Space
In his classes, Rifat Sipahi often challenges his engineering students to explore a problem that is literally out of this world. For example, he notes that operators in Houston control NASAs Mars Exploration Rover, but it takes several minutes to transmit steering instructions from Earth to the vehicle which presents challenges for scientists, who must wait to see the rover actually move before sending its next command.