NASA 4-Wheel DuAxel Rover To Explore Moon, Mars, And Asteroids.

 

The adaptability of a flexible rover that can travel long distances and rappel down hard-to-reach regions of scientific interest was shown in a field test in California's Mojave Desert. 

DuAxel is a pair of Axel robots intended to investigate crater walls, pits, scarps, vents, and other severe environments on the moon, Mars, and beyond. 

• The robot's capacity to split in half and dispatch one of its parts - a two-wheeled Axle robot - down an otherwise impassable hill is shown in this technological demonstration produced at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. 

• The rappelling Axel may then seek out regions to research on its own, securely navigate slopes and rough barriers, and return to dock with its other half before traveling to a new location. 

• Although the rover does not yet have a mission, essential technologies are being developed that might one day assist mankind in exploring the solar system's stony planets and moons.

DuAxel is a development of the Axel system, a flexible series of single-axle rovers meant to traverse high-risk terrain on planetary surfaces, such as steep slopes, boulder fields, and caverns — locations that existing rovers, such as Mars Curiosity, would find difficult or impossible to approach. 

DuAxel's Advantages:

To cover greater distances, two connected Axel Rovers are used: 

• DuAxel travels large distances by connecting two Axel rovers. 

• They divide in two when they approach a steep slope or cliff so that one tied Axel may rappel down the steep danger to reach otherwise inaccessible area while the other works as an anchor at the top of the slope. 

Tether that can be retracted: 

• The Axel rover can lower itself down practically any sort of terrain by reeling and unreeling its built-in rope. 

Greater Maneuverability: 

• The two-wheeled axle simply spins one of its wheels quicker than the other to turn. 

• The core cylinder between the wheels houses the sensors, actuators, electronics, power, and payload.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Find Jai on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

You may also want to read more about Space Exploration and Space Systems here.

References & Further Reading:

JPL Robotics: The Axel Rover System

Educational Resources:

Student Project: Design a Robotic Insect.

Educator Guide: Design a Robotic Insect.

NASA Asteroid Missions

Asteroid day is celebrated every day at NASA. We are constantly gazing to the sky, from expeditions to asteroids in our solar system – some of which even return samples to Earth – to attempts to locate, track, and monitor near-Earth objects and safeguard our planet from possible impact dangers.

Several ambitious missions to investigate unusual asteroids will be launched in the coming years. 

In October and November 2021 NASA will be launching, 

• The Lucy mission

• Lucy is the Trojan Asteroids' First Mission

• These primordial entities may contain crucial insights about the solar system's past, as well as the beginnings of biological stuff on Earth.

• The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission

• NASA has entrusted the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), with assistance from several NASA centers including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Johnson Space Center (JSC), Glenn Research Center (GRC), and Langley Research Center (LaRC).

• DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technology aimed at preventing an asteroid from colliding with Earth. DART will be the first time a kinetic impactor will be used to alter an asteroid's velocity in space. 

• The DART project is now in Phase C, directed by APL and administered by Marshall Space Flight Center for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the Science Mission Directorate's Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, under NASA's Solar System Exploration Program.

Followed by,

• The launch date for the Psyche mission is set for 2022.

• The Psyche mission will go to a rare metal asteroid that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. 

• The asteroid Psyche is unusual in that it seems to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of our solar system's building components.

• OSIRIS-REx started its return to Earth in 2021 and is scheduled to arrive in 2023 with an asteroid sample in tow. 

• OSIRIS-REx has arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and is bringing back a tiny sample for examination. 

• The mission took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on September 8, 2016. 

• In 2018, the spacecraft arrived on Bennu, and in 2023, it will return a sample to Earth.

• The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) satellite observatory has also received a two-year mission extension to continue its hunt for asteroids and comets.

• It has verified infrared sightings of over 39,100 objects in our solar system to far.

• From December 2009 to February 2011, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was a NASA infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope. 

• The spacecraft was revived in September 2013, renamed NEOWISE, and given a new mission: to help NASA in identifying and characterizing the population of near-Earth objects (NEO).

You may also want to read more about Space Missions and Systems here.