(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/NASA)
Three mini lunar rovers successfully passed a test ahead of their moon mission. The trio is set to fly to the Moon later this year or early next year.
Trio of Lunar Rovers Passes Key Test Ahead Moon Mission
Three cooperative lunar rovers have been trained at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the renowned "Mars Yard" in preparation for their deployment to the Moon, and they performed admirably.
There have been two primary areas of concentration for the rover trio's testing. One is driving demonstration versions of the rovers around JPL's Mars Yard, an outdoor obstacle course used by rovers training to travel to Mars, to assess how effectively CADRE's cooperative autonomous software performs. The Mars Yard is also serving as a lunar terrain simulator due to the increased number of rover missions scheduled for the Moon.
The rovers can travel information, and their software lets them communicate when they come across obstacles like boulders or steep slopes to figure out the best course of action together. They also watch out for each other: when one rover's solar batteries run low, the other two rovers wait for their companion's array to fully recharge before moving forward together.
While their impersonators enjoy themselves in the Mars Yard, the actual CADRE rovers traveling to the Moon have also been assigned tasks. The rovers can slip on the slick floors of the clean room where the flight models have been tested and travel out of formation without becoming confused. They exchange messages, correct one another's posture, and continue.
"Dealing with curveballs—that's important for autonomy," Jean-Pierre de la Croix, CADRE's principal investigator, said in the statement. We're going to a unique environment on the Moon, and there will, of course, be some unknowns. We've done our best to prepare for those by testing software and hardware together in various situations."
Cooperation is vital for the three robotic wheeled explorers known as the Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADER) rovers. They are the size of a suitcase and are designed to work together.
On the second mission, sponsored by the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, they will take off for the Reiner Gamma region of the Moon. There, they will demonstrate how robots can cooperate on a different planet without the direct intervention of humans.
JPL's CADRE project manager, Subha Commander, stated in a press release that they have been working nonstop to prepare this tech demo for its lunar adventure. The team has been testing the rovers repeatedly, and their efforts have paid off. They are confident that the rovers are prepared to demonstrate their teamwork.
Japan's Slim Successfully Landed on the Moon
Earlier this year, a Japanese robot successfully landed on the Moon. On Jan. 19, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) gently descended into the lunar surface. With this achievement, the Asian country became the only one after the US, the Soviet Union, China, and India to soft-land on an Earthly satellite.
Engineers are struggling to maintain the mission, though. There are no known reasons why the craft's solar cells are unable to generate electricity.
After hibernating for over a month, it reacted to a command from Earth in February and returned new images, including multiple views of rocks on the lunar surface.
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