Working as a team, three lunar rovers conducted their trials at the famous “Mars Yard” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) ahead of their launch to the moon later this year or early next year.
Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Research or DIALThe rovers are a trio of suitcase-sized robotic wheeled explorers where collaboration is the name of the game. They will fly there moonHouston company’s Reiner Gama region is on its second mission Intuitive MachinesThey will serve as a proof of concept to show how robots can work together in another world without overt intervention from humans.
“We went into overdrive to prepare this technology demo for the lunar adventure,” said Subha Comandur, JPL’s CADRE project manager. press release. “There have been tests and sometimes retests for almost 24 hours, but the team’s hard work is paying off. We now know that these rovers are ready to show what a team of small space robots can achieve together.”
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The roving trio’s tests focused on two main areas. One of them evaluates how well CADRE’s collaborative autonomous software works by driving demonstration models of the rovers around JPL’s Mars Yard; an outdoor obstacle course for sightseers. Anthem. Now, with more rover missions planned for the Moon, Mars Yard is pulling double duty as a lunar terrain simulator.
When the rovers, which can move forward steadily, encounter an obstacle like a rock or a steep slope, their software allows them to communicate with each other, share maps and formulate the best route forward. They look out for each other, too: When one rover’s solar panels run low on energy, the other two rovers wait for their companion’s solar panel to recharge before continuing together.
While the real CADRE rovers that will go to the moon get to work, their twins are having fun in the Mars Garden. The flight models were test-driven in a clean room, on polished floors where the rovers could slip and fall out of formation; But this does not confuse them. They just communicate with each other, readjust their positions, and move on.
“Dealing with curveballs – this is important for autonomy,” CADRE principal investigator Jean-Pierre de la Croix said in a statement. “We’re going to a unique environment on the Moon, and of course there will be some unknowns. We’ve done our best to prepare for these by testing software and hardware together in a variety of situations.”
Shake and Bake
The other part of the testing was preparing the rovers for the violence of the launch and the brutal environment of the moon, where temperature fluctuations and contrasting light and shadow could affect their performance.
Mission engineers in particular have adopted a “shake and bake” approach. The “shake” part sees the rovers docked to a shaking table that simulates the violent vibrations they will experience during their launch to SpaceX hawk 9 rocket. The “baking” part involves placing the rovers in a thermal vacuum chamber that can switch between acting like an oven and acting like a freezer to simulate the extreme temperatures of space.
CADRE Projects Flight System Manager Guy Zohar said the tests were “very frustrating to witness in person.” After all, the hard work that goes into building the rovers could go to waste if something goes wrong in testing that would damage or destroy the rovers. However, Zohar said, “Fortunately, every test was ultimately successful.”
It’s not just travelers who are subject to these inspections; Intuitive Machines have all the auxiliary equipment that will go to the moon with them Nova-C lander. This includes a base station with which the rovers can communicate, a camera that can monitor the activities of the small rovers, and a motorized pulley that will position the rovers on the lunar surface via an unraveling fiber tether.
Now that testing is complete, the rovers and their hardware are being shipped to Intuitive Machines in Houston, where they will be paired with the Nova-C lander. The mission will be Intuitive Machines’ second journey to the moon under NASA. Commercial Lunar Load Services (CLPS) program. The first mission of the Intuitive Machines started On February 15, a Nova-C lander named Odysseus headed towards the Moon’s south polar region. Landed on February 22last minute one or more legs was knocked down in the process and shortly after touchdown. Despite the technical challenges this created, all NASA experiments conducted on the mission managed to successfully return data.
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Intuitive Machines’ second mission is to take the CADRE rovers to Reiner Gamma, among other experiments. This is a region on the moon marked “moon vortex” – a strange pattern in the terrain associated with anomalous magnetic fields. The CADRE rovers will spend 14 days on the moon in broad daylight, mapping the subsurface with surface-penetrating radar to see if there is anything that could explain the moon’s vortex. As lunar night approaches, they reach the sunlight needed to recharge their batteries The rovers will shut down after 14 days as their access is cut off.
If the CADRE mission is successful, it could lead to more ambitious multi-robot teams that could explore not only the moon but also the moon. Anthem in the future.