A team of small lunar rovers

NASA will send three luggage-sized rovers to the moon. The Cadre project is designed to prove that multiple robots can collaborate and explore together autonomously. Credit: NASA

“All for one, one for all!” This may be the slogan for three small NASA rovers that are now approaching launch and will explore the Moon in conjunction with each other. Engineers Jet Propulsion Laboratory Jpl, a Southern California company, recently finished assembling the new four-wheeled robots and putting them through a series of tests to ensure they survive the arduous journey into space and, once they reach their destination, the unforgiving lunar environment. .

The trio is part of Staff (Autonomous Distributed Cooperative Robotic Exploration), NASA's Autonomous Cooperative Robotic Exploration project: As the name suggests, it aims to have rovers capable of moving and interacting with each other autonomously and, unlike other semi-automated rovers, without direct input from a control center on our planet . They are small solar-powered rovers, about the size of a handbag, designed to explore areas of the Moon that are potentially dangerous to astronauts, such as Rainer Gamma – In the largest sea of ​​the moonOcean of storms – Subject to intense magnetic phenomena. The rovers and associated hardware components will be installed on Lander Lunar and will spend the daylight hours of a lunar day — the equivalent of about 14 Earth days — conducting exploration, mapping and ground-penetrating radar experiments to look beneath the surface of our natural satellite.

The history of lunar exploration rovers is long, but if the CADRE project is successful, future missions could include entire teams of robots to carry out simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements. Right now, engineers are putting the rovers through their final tests, eliminating bugs to perfect the hardware and preparing integration with the lander. “There have been months of testing, almost 24 hours a day, but the team's hard work is paying off. We now know that these spacecraft are ready to show what a team of small space robots can achieve when combined together.” Sobha leader, project manager From the staff at Jpl.

The list of tests performed is long. The most “wild” are those that live in harsh environmental conditions, to ensure that the rovers can withstand rough terrain on the lunar soil. Other simulations include thermal vacuum chambers that simulate the airless conditions of space and extremely hot and cold temperatures. In addition, the devices are attached to a special, snap-on “shaking table,” to ensure they can withstand the mechanical stresses that lie ahead. “This is what we do with our rovers: we ‘shake’ them to simulate the rocket launch itself, and then we ‘cook’ them to simulate the extreme temperatures in space,” he explains. Guy Zohar, Aviation System Manager at Jpl. Engineers also conducted environmental tests on three pieces of hardware installed on the lander: a base station with which the rovers will communicate via a wireless network, a camera to follow the rovers' activities, and deployment systems that will lower the rovers to the lunar surface via cable fibers supported by a motorized reel. After that, the devices will be shipped to Intuitive machinesa NASA company working on the commercial lunar program, will then be installed on the Nova-C lander that will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The list of tests is extensive, but the most challenging involves extreme environmental conditions to ensure the rovers can withstand the rigors of the road ahead. Credit: NASA

Meanwhile, Cadre's collaborative autonomous software team has been bringing miniature versions of the rovers to sandy and rocky areas. Mars Square – An outdoor proving ground recreated at JPL to simulate a variety of planetary terrain. Thanks to flight software and on-board autonomous capabilities, these rovers prototypes have proven capable of achieving the project's main objectives by “moving” in formation. Facing unexpected obstacles, they adjusted their plans and movements by working as a group, sharing updated maps and planning new alternative routes in a coordinated way. And without leaving the robot “buddies” behind: when one of the rovers ran out of battery, the rest of the team took a break so they could continue together.

The “road tests” were also successful. The project conducted many test drives at night, under large, high-illumination lamps, so that the rovers could experience intense shadows and lighting conditions similar to those they would encounter during lunar day. Furthermore, on terrain with a different texture than the lunar surface, which is more slippery, the robots left the formation, messing up the initial alignment. They then stopped, reset and continued on their intended path.

“Knowing how to manage surprises is essential for independence. The strength of our project lies precisely in the fact that the robots are able to respond to unexpected events, reorganize themselves and move forward successfully.” John Peter of the Cross From Jpl, Scientific Director of the Cadre and Automation Operations Project. “We did our best to set up and test the software and hardware together in different situations. “We're going to the moon, and obviously we're going to have to figure out how to deal with the unknowns and the unscheduled.”

Watch JPL's video: