MIT's itty-bitty moon robot has something to prove
Ekblaw's team built a multitude of the cheap and tiny robots. They developed software and radio links that can enable them to act as a swarm, with multitudes of robots teaming up to carry out complex tasks like spaceship repairs.
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Next came tests on board an aircraft operated by Florida-based
Now one of the robots is traveling aboard the
The AstroAnt mission is being aided by an unexpected collaborator— Castrol, a British company best known for motor oil. But Nicola Buck, chief marketing officer of Castrol's parent company BP, said her company has long specialized in aerospace products, like the oil inside the Wright Brothers' engine at Kitty Hawk and specialized lubricants for the Apollo moon missions.
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'We lubricate pieces and parts of almost anything that moves,' said Buck, including the wheels of the AstroAnt. which will use compounds unaffected by the temperature extremes of outer space.
The A
stroAnt is riding atop a different kind of roving robot carried inside the Athena and built by the Colorado company
When the rover emerges from Athena, it will shoot high-definition 3-D images of the moon using a camera developed at MIT. Meanwhile the AstroAnt robot will simply drive around on top of the rover, while using a heat sensor to monitor the vehicle's temperature. Its readings will be transmitted to the rover and back to earth.
A horde of intelligent machines will be visiting the moon this year. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, launched on a SpaceX rocketin January, touched down over the weekend. NASA's Lunar Trailblazer, which flew on the same rocket as AstroAnt, will go into orbit around the moon later this year, to search for signs of water. And Japan's ispace has launched a lander that's supposed to arrive this spring.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at
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