Tech Briefs Magazine - June 2024 - 40

APPLICATION
BRIEFS
NASA's Network of Small Moon-Bound Rovers Is Ready to Roll
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Pasadena, CA
www.jpl.nasa.gov
C
onstruction and testing are complete on the CADRE rovers,
which will map the lunar surface together as a tech
demo to show the promise of multirobot missions.
A trio of small rovers that will explore the Moon in sync
with one another are rolling toward launch. Engineers at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
recently finished assembling the robots, then subjected
them to a punishing series of tests to ensure they'll survive
their jarring rocket ride into space and their travels
in the unforgiving lunar environment.
Part of a technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative
Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration),
each solar-powered rover is about the size of a carry-on
suitcase. The rovers and associated hardware will be installed
on a lander headed for the Moon's Reiner Gamma
region. They'll spend the daylight hours of a lunar day
- the equivalent of about 14 days on Earth - conducting
experiments by autonomously exploring, mapping,
and using ground-penetrating radar that will peer below
the Moon's surface.
The goal is to show that a group of robotic spacecraft
can work together to accomplish tasks and record data as
a team without explicit commands from mission controllers
on Earth. If the project succeeds, future missions
could include teams of robots spreading out to take simultaneous,
distributed scientific measurements, potentially
in support of astronauts.
Engineers have put in long hours test-driving rovers and
working out bugs to finish the hardware, get it through testing,
and prepare it for integration with the lander.
" We have been in overdrive getting this tech demo ready
for its lunar adventure, " said Subha Comandur, CADRE
Project Manager at JPL. " It's been months of nearly roundthe-clock
testing and sometimes re-testing, but the team's
hard work is paying off. Now we know these rovers are
ready to show what a team of little space robots can accomplish
together. "
While the list of tests is extensive, the most brutal involve
extreme environmental conditions to ensure the rovers can
withstand the rigors of the road ahead. That includes being
locked in a thermal vacuum chamber that simulates the airless
conditions of space and its extreme hot and cold temperatures.
The hardware also gets clamped to a special " shaker table " that
vibrates intensely to make sure it will endure the journey out of
Earth's atmosphere.
" This is what we submit our rovers to: 'shake' to simulate the
rocket launch itself and 'bake' to simulate the extreme temperatures
of space. It's very nerve-wracking to witness in person, " said
JPL's Guy Zohar, the project's Flight System Manager. " We're us40
Part
of NASA's CADRE technology demonstration, three small rovers that will
explore the Moon together show off their ability to drive as a team autonomously
- without explicit commands from engineers - during a test in a
clean room at the agency's Jet. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
A CADRE rover is prepared for electromagnetic interference and compatibility
testing in a special chamber at JPL in November 2023. Such testing confirms
that the operation of the electronic subsystems do not interfere with each
other nor with those on the lander. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
ing many carefully selected commercial parts on our project. We
expect them to work, but we're always a little worried when we go
into testing. Happily, each test has ultimately been successful. "
Engineers also performed environmental testing on three
hardware elements mounted on the lander: a base station that
the rovers will communicate with via mesh network radios, a
camera that will provide a view of the rovers' activities, and the
deployer systems that will lower the rovers to the lunar surface
via a fiber tether fed slowly out from a motorized spool.
Meanwhile, engineers working on CADRE's cooperative autonomy
software have spent many days in JPL's rocky, sandy
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