All articles tagged with #rover
Researchers at Universität Würzburg developed bio-inspired wheels that mimic a sandfish lizard to swim through soft Martian sand, reducing sinking and enabling safer, more efficient rover traversal; field tests refined wheel width and mass, and future work includes real-time terrain-adaptive control for autonomous navigation under the VaMEx program.
NASA's Perseverance rover is gearing up to cover a marathon-distance journey on Mars—roughly 26 miles across the Jezero Crater—testing endurance, autonomy, and long-range science capabilities as mission teams monitor progress across multiple sols.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has sent back a new selfie from the Martian surface, capturing its wheels and robotic arm against the planet’s dusty, desert-like terrain at Jezero Crater as part of ongoing exploration and sample-caching missions.
NASA released a two‑minute timelapse from the Curiosity rover spanning six years at Gale Crater to study how sand grains shift on the rover’s deck as it climbs Mount Sharp; the footage helps scientists separate wheel‑driven sand from wind‑blown dust, part of broader findings about Mars’ past habitability and ongoing challenges like wheel wear, with Curiosity having traveled about 23 miles since landing in 2012, and NASA continuing engineering tweaks to keep the rover moving.
A European concept named PHILIP would power a 250 kg lunar rover with a 500-watt infrared laser from a sunlit lander up to 15 km away, enabling operation in the Moon’s permanently shadowed, ice-rich regions by converting the laser into electricity with modified solar panels; the system also enables two-way data via a modulated retro-reflector, with field tests in Tenerife and plans for prototyping under ESA funding.
A study of Curiosity rover images by Ohio University professor William Romoser claims to have identified insect- and reptile-like creatures on Mars, suggesting Mars may host Earth-like life and proposing terms like astroentomology and astroherpetology; the findings are controversial and not broadly accepted by the scientific community.
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover is studying six-foot-high “boxwork” ridges on Mount Sharp, likely formed by ancient lakes and groundwater. The minerals, including clay, suggest wet conditions long ago and the possibility of preserved signs of past microbial life. The team has mapped routes through the ridges, plans to leave the area next month, and will continue exploring the sulfate-rich layers to understand Mars’ climate history.
NASA’s Curiosity rover lights up Martian darkness with LEDs on its robotic arm to illuminate a rock drill hole—Nevado Sajama—so scientists can study rock layers and boxwork formations that are otherwise shadowed. The true-color image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager shows how nighttime imaging helps geology work, building on 2018 drill improvements and noting a smooth hole drilled on sol 4740.
NASA awarded Firefly Aerospace a $177 million contract for a 2029 lunar mission to deploy multiple rovers and scientific instruments to explore the moon's south pole, aiming to study resources and environmental hazards to support future lunar and Mars exploration.
UW-Madison engineers discovered a flaw in how rover terrain is tested on Earth, revealing that Earth's gravity affects sand support differently than on the moon, which impacts rover mobility predictions. Their physics-based simulations, using open-source software Chrono, improve understanding of extraterrestrial surface traversal, benefiting space missions and Earth applications alike.
NASA's Perseverance rover set a new record for the longest drive on Mars, covering 411 meters thanks to advanced self-driving technology, aiding in its mission to collect ancient Martian rocks and potentially find signs of past life. It is also nearing the total distance traveled by the Opportunity rover, highlighting its rapid progress in Martian exploration.
NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars set a new record by driving over 411 meters in a single trip, aided by its self-driving software, enabling longer and more efficient scientific exploration, particularly in search of ancient water and potential biosignatures in the Jezero crater region.
NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered carbon-rich rocks on Mars that suggest the planet once had liquid water and could have been temporarily habitable, raising the possibility that life may have existed there, though likely only briefly. A future Mars sample return mission in 2033 aims to provide more definitive evidence of past life.
NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars has picked up a rock named "Dwayne" in one of its wheels, reminiscent of previous rovers like Spirit and Curiosity that also had similar "companions." These rocks typically stay with the rovers for a while before eventually dislodging.
A small European-built rover named IDEFIX has arrived in Japan to be part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Martian Moon Exploration (MMX) probe, which aims to collect samples of Mars' moon, Phobos. The rover, developed by the German Aerospace Center and the French space agency, will play a crucial role in gathering information and preparing for the landing of the main spacecraft, which is scheduled to grab Phobos' material in 2029 and send it towards Earth for arrival in 2031. The mission was originally set to launch in 2024 but has been delayed to the next Mars launch window in 2026 due to concerns over the readiness of the new Japanese H3 rocket.