NASA Wants To Send A Fleet Of Mini Rovers To Explore The Moon´s Lava Tubes

NASA Wants To Send A Fleet Of Mini Rovers To Explore The Moon´s Lava Tubes

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Exploring lava tubes on the Moon is the kind of mission where engineers know rovers can be lost, but NASA says a swarm of mini-bots could do the job.

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NASA Wants To Send A Fleet Of Mini Rovers To Explore The Moon´s Lava Tubes

A new swarm of NASA mini-bots could soon be scouting the most dangerous terrains of the Moon, and going down its massive lava tubes. NASA has been working on the miniaturization of robots and space technology for years. However, rovers today are still heavy-duty machines, the Perseverance rover weighs over 1 ton and is the size of a small SUV.

NASA recently revealed the 18 astronauts that will be training for the Artemis mission and the return of humanity to the Moon. With the push of Artemis, which includes a series of missions, and the construction of a new base in the Moon’s south pole, a wide range of new exploration technology is being developed. NASA is prioritizing technology that can explore the Moon, map it out, identify volatile elements, and process the resources that humans need to live on our natural satellite.

NASA is developing several programs that use small rovers that work as a unit to explore the Moon. The idea is for the mini-rovers, that fold like origami, to hitch a ride with the main rover. CADRE, short for Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Explorers, a JPL project branching out from a 2017 project, designed new compact, mobile, and shoebox-sized robots to be deployed in the coming years on a demonstration mission to the Moon.

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The Power Is In The Numbers

Alex Schepelmann, a robotics and computational modeling engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center spoke to MIT Tech Review about the benefits of small-rovers. They are not meant to replace the big rovers but complement their work. The small bots work as a swarm, communicating together, and if one is lost as it “goes down into a lava tube” the mission could continue. JPL is haunted by the fate of the Mars rover Spirit which met the end of its life trapped in sand.

NASA engineers explain that the rovers used today cannot get knee-deep into craters, caves, and other dangerous terrains, while the smaller robots are designed and tested for these conditions. NASA has also funded another mini-bot project, the ASTER, or Autonomous Swarming for Teams of Exploration Robots of Charles River Analytics, that draws inspiration from CADRE. Small bots working as a group also enhance autonomy and avoid time-consuming events and disruptions caused by the delays in communications coming from Earth.

The small robots do not carry much equipment; just a small computer, a wireless radio, and a stereo camera to capture 3D imagery. But there is power in numbers. They collect much more data working as a unit and reduce the risk of a catastrophic mission failure. NASA’s Artemis I is stacked and a lunar base is tentatively scheduled to be started in 2024. On the south pole, the Aitken basin—the largest observed impact structure on the Moon—exploration will be tough, and a swarm of fearless mini-bots may roam where others could not.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/nasa-artemis-lava-tube-exploration-moon-mission/

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