An artist's rendering shows the baseball-sized probes being designed by MIT researchers for Mars exploration.
Credit: Gus Frederic/MIT
SYDNEY, 26 July 2006 - Within 10 years scientists could be using thousands of tiny robots that bounce "like Mexican jumping beans" to search for life on Mars. A recent grant from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts could be the boost the scientists needed to make their wildest dreams come true.
The team, lead by Steven Dubowsky from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), hopes to send thousands of the robot troops, armed to withstand the extreme cold and ultraviolet radiation on Mars, to search uncharted terrain.
The robots would be given a job: reporters would research and record relevant data, photographers would take pictures and send the images back to televisions, field scientists would record atmosphere characteristics, and laboratory scientists would perform small-scale laboratory tests.
With the mentality of a five-star general, Dubowsky reported that sacrificing a few of the thousands of robots would not affect the mission to look for signs of life.
"You could hop for a long, long time on a few grams of fuel," said Dubowsky. Each probe would weigh 100 grams and carry its own fuel cell; "artificial muscles" would strengthen the bounce so that the robots could "swarm" 130 square kilometres within a month, he said.
To keep track of the scientific expeditions, the robots will be able to talk to their neighbours through local area network (LAN) and report information back to Earth.
Currently, the Mars Exploration Rovers are too bulky to creep into narrow craters or lava tubes where water may have flowed. However, the cricket-ball-sized robots would be able to bounce, hop or roll into caves to investigate.
Cave expert, Penelope Boston at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, is collaborating with the team, hoping the robots will one day explore caves beneath the surface of Mars. She reveals in an interview with Astrobiology Magazine, "the subsurface of Mars would be the last refuge of life on that planet as it became colder and drier over geological time."
with MIT
