Inside a cleanroom at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, CADRE moon rovers prepare to launch to the lunar surface as part of a technology test for autonomous exploration
in Pasadena, California, three moon rovers undergo final checks before being attached to flight hardware, ahead of a proposed launch later this year. The, or CADRE for short, are a technology test of what NASA calls a multi-agent autonomous rover. Once on the moon, the trio will work together to autonomously complete tasks. Onboard each device are two stereo cameras, navigation sensors and ground-penetrating radar, which can create detailed 3D maps of the lunar surface.
Rather than micromanage the mission, controllers on Earth will give the rovers simple, high-level commands to achieve an overall objective, such as requesting that they search and study a specific area. How the rovers complete that task, manage obstacles, maintain communications and return the required data will largely be handled autonomously, with all three working in unison. “Fundamentally, this will change how we explore the moon or any planetary body,” says, the project manager of CADRE.
CADRE will help develop the technology required for more ambitious autonomous rovers in the future, enabling robust exploration of extreme environments such as lava or ice caves, the surface of Mars or even ocean worlds. “Once we show this successfully working on the moon, we could potentially send this same technology to anywhere,” says Comandur. The tech could even interact with human astronauts to return samples or be used in other vehicles such as drones, she adds.
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