R E M O T E S Y S T E M S C O N T R O L E N G I N E E R COOL STEM CAREERS CHAPTER ONE CONTROLLING THINGS FROM A DISTANCE 4 CHAPTER TWO WORKING AS A REMOTE SYSTEMS CONTROL ENGINEER 12 CHAPTER THREE BECOMING A REMOTE SYSTEMS CONTROL ENGINEER 18 CHAPTER FOUR THE FUTURE OF REMOTE ENGINEERING 24 SOME WELL-KNOWN REMOTE SYSTEMS CONTROL ENGINEERS 29 GLOSSARY 30 FOR MORE INFORMATION 31 INDEX 32 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 32 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Curiosity’s landing was carefully designed to protect the rover from damage COOL STEM CAREERS REMOTE SYSTEMS CONTROL ENGINEER 2 1 S T C E N T U R Y S K I L L S L I B R A R Y CHAPTER ONE CONTROLLING THINGS FROM A DISTANCE On August 5 2012 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA landed a robotic
six-wheeled truck on the planet Mars The name of this moving laboratory or rover is Curiosity It had traveled to Mars on a spaceship that looked like a flying saucer When the spaceship neared the surface of the planet it came apart A rocket-powered ship holding Curiosity dropped out This device lowered Curiosity to the ground using cables When the rover was on the ground tiny explosives blew up and cut the cable lines The rocket-powered ship then flew off and crashed nearby It was time for Curiosity to get to work But first the roving laboratory needed someone to tell it what to do That’s when specially trained engineers stepped in to give Curiosity its orders Each morning they provide the rover with its work schedule from planet Earth an average of about 140 million miles 225 million kilometers away The engineers send Curiosity its directions with radio signals It takes about 14 minutes for a signal from Earth to reach the rover and another 14 minutes for one to come back The men and women who operate or access objects from a distance are called remote systems control engi neers It’s a brand-new category of job titles and it includes a lot more than communicating with objects in space Remote means that these engineers work from somewhere away from the object they control Systems describes complicated sets of tools and ways to use the tools Curiosity for example is fitted with cameras for photographing the landscape of Mars
