Control
Robotic spacecraft use telemetry to radio back to Earth acquired data and vehicle status information. Although generally referred to as "remotely-controlled" or "telerobotic", the earliest orbital spacecraft – such as Sputnik 1 and Explorer 1 – did not receive control signals from Earth. Soon after these first spacecraft, command systems were developed to allow remote control from the ground. Increased autonomy is important for distant probes where the light travel time prevents rapid decision and control from Earth. Newer probes such as Cassini–Huygens and the Mars Exploration Rovers are highly autonomous and use on-board computers to operate independently for extended periods of time.
Read more about this topic: Robotic Spacecraft
Famous quotes containing the word control:
“Our culture still holds mothers almost exclusively responsible when things go wrong with the kids. Sensing this ultimate accountability, women are understandably reluctant to give up control or veto power. If the finger of blame was eventually going to point in your direction, wouldn’t you be?”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“There are many things children accept as “grown-up things” over when they have no control and for which they have no responsibility—for instance, weddings, having babies, buying houses, and driving cars. Parents who are separating really need to help their children put divorce on that grown-up list, so that children do not see themselves as the cause of their parents’ decision to live apart.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“The human mind is indeed a cave swarming with strange forms of life, most of them unconscious and unilluminated. Unless we can understand something as to how the motives that issue from this obscurity are generated, we can hardly hope to foresee or control them.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)