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hello my name is curtis wilkerson and i

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am a quality assurance engineer for the

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mars science laboratory rover and this

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is the jet propulsion laboratory

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spacecraft assembly facility this is

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literally where it all comes together

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come on let's go inside

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when we're building a spacecraft all of

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its parts are brought here to the clean

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room for final assembly

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so why do we use a clean room

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because dust particles and other

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microscopic contaminants can harm our

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sensitive equipment and optics so we

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have to remove those particles from the

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air also tiny airborne life forms called

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microbes coexist with us we have to

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remove those as well because we don't

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want to visit another planet and think

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we've discovered life just to find out

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we brought it with us from earth this

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clean room is configured as a class 10

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000 clean room that means that within

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one cubic foot of air there can be no

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more than 10 000 particles the size of

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half of a micron

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than the width of the human hair now if

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10 000 sounds like a lot by comparison

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the room that we're standing in has

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nearly 500 000 to a million particles

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within one cubic foot that are larger

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than half a micron so where do all these

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particles come from

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well most of them come from us the

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people

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things like skin flakes our hair

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cosmetics even the lint on our clothes

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when we're standing still motionless we

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shed more than a hundred thousand

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particles per minute we're also worried

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about tribal electric charging

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now that's just a fancy way of saying

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static electricity

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you know how it feels when you're

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walking along a carpet and you touch a

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doorknob and you get that little shot

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well that is more than 2 000 volts of

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electricity

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that kind of shock can do a lot of

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damage to our electronics and sensitive

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equipment so to prevent static

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electricity and contamination we wear a

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special clean room garment you may have

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noticed we call it a bunny suit come on

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inside the clean room the air is kept

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cleaned by a special ventilation system

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on this side of the room air is blown in

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while existing air is sucked out on the

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north side of the room it's then

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recirculated through hepa filters and

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carbon filters before being blown back

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into the clean room we also move our

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heavy equipment with large cranes the

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crane above us has a capacity of 15 tons

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inside the clean room we're building the

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mars science laboratory the next rover

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going to mars we have four large

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components in here today behind me is

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the back shell during our 10-month

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cruise this will be the home of our

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rover it's covered in a white thermal

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protection system right now to protect

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it during entry into the planet

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here we have the descent stage some call

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it the sky crane after we detach from

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the parachute this has the

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responsibility of lowering the rover

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with the help of eight retro rockets

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seen in red

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to a soft landing on the surface of mars

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and nearly 16 feet in diameter our

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cruise stage gets us from earth to mars

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with solar panels on the top we have

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power

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antennas pointing towards earth we have

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communication and with the little

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rockets in the corner in red we can make

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small trajectory maneuvers during our

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and here's the reason we're going to

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mars the mars science laboratory rover

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the largest rover this planet has ever

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sent to mars

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it's mid-october and right now we're

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doing a lot of electrical testing but

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the closer we get to our launch date

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we'll start adding our wheels and our

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masks with the cameras and then the

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robotic arm that'll really start to take

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form once we're finished with all our

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assembly and test we'll pack it up and

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ship it to cape canaveral florida at

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kennedy space center we'll go through

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even more tasks before we stack it on a

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rocket and launch it to mars i gotta get

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back to work but i hope you enjoyed your