Space drones will collect samples from planets and asteroids
While Curiosity’s doing a great job on the red planet, there are still areas it can’t go to, such as steep cliffs/hills and locations hidden by permanent shadows. That’s why the engineers at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Swamp Works laboratory are developing drones that can withstand harsh conditions on other planets and navigate extraterrestrial terrain. These machines, collectively called “Extreme Access Flyers,” will be gathering samples from places rovers can’t access. They’ll have rotors much larger than the ones you see on regular quadcopters and will use cold-gas jets to lift off and maneuver themselves. They need those, because Mars has a thin atmosphere and the other two target locations — asteroids and the moon — have no air. In addition, they’ll have to be able to fly autonomously, since there’s no GPS out there and they’ll be too far from Earth to be controlled by a ground team.
The engineers have already created three different prototypes for testing: a quadcopter five feet across, a functional palm-sized version of the first one used to test software, and a completely different model meant for asteroids kept inside a gimbal device, as you can see in the video below. The developers haven’t decided on how the drones will collect samples yet, but they believe the machines can carry one tool and collect around seven grams of sample, whether liquid or solid, at a time. They also think the drones can be used here on Earth to explore volcanic areas and to collect highly toxic materials.
Filed under: Robots
Source: NASA
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