Three of NASA’s miniature autonomous explorers will soon head to the moon, with the aim of increasing the efficiency of exploration missions.
The four-wheeled, handbag-sized lunar explorer – known as Collaborative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) – will work as a team and carry out tasks with a high level of initial human input.
The intrepid trio will travel to the moon aboard Intuitive Engine’s third lunar lander, IM-3, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The launch date is set for 2024.
Related: Missions to the Moon: Past, Present and Future
The mission will target the interesting Gamma Rainer region, one of a number of mysterious rotating regions of the Moon with associated local magnetic fields.
Gamma Rayner is located in the Oceanus Procellarum (“sea of storms”), on the western edge of the moon’s near side and just north of the equator, where midday temperatures can reach 237 degrees Fahrenheit (114 degrees Celsius). .
The Cadre rover will be lowered to the lunar surface via ropes and find a place to catch the sun and charge its batteries. Then they would spend the remaining lunar days, which is about 14 days, doing experiments to test their skills.
While their mission would be short, it could affect long term exploration. By taking simultaneous measurements from multiple locations, the rover will seek to show how multi-robot missions can enable new science or support astronauts.
“Our mission is to demonstrate that a network of mobile robots can collaborate to complete a task without human intervention – autonomously,” said Sabha Commander, CADRE project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. statement.
“It could change the way we do exploration in the future. The question for future missions will be: ‘How many explorers do we send, and what will they do together?’” added the Commander. “
The three will take orders from their lunar landers, divide tasks among themselves and decide how to carry out their plans safely.
“The only instructions are, for example, ‘Go explore this area,’ and explorers will know everything else: when they are going to drive, what route they are going to take, how they can maneuver around local hazards,” says Jean-Pierre de la Croix of JPL, Principal Investigator at CARE.
“You just tell them a high-level goal, and they have to figure out how to achieve it.”
The rovers will perform their role under the surveillance of surveillance cameras above the 13-foot (4-meter) lander. This role includes driving in formation and avoiding obstacles, as each robot explores a 4,300-square-foot (400-square-metre) patch of lunar surface while using a stereo camera to create a 3D topographical map. The rover also carries a ground-penetrating radar, which will provide a glimpse of up to 33 feet (10 meters) deep into Earth’s interior.
Mission team members say that a successful launch will demonstrate that the multi-spacecraft approach can help us explore dangerous but scientifically rewarding planetary terrain.
The Cadre is one of the Four Fly payload sets on the IM-3. The Nova-C Lander will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and carry a total mass of approximately 203 lb (92 kg) of probe mission payload.
2023-08-08 21:19:28
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