Recent advances in microtechnology and mobile robotics have made it feasible to create extremely small automated or remote-controlled vehicles which open new application frontiers. One of these possible applications is the use of nanorovers (robotic vehicles with a mass of order 1 kg or less) in planetary exploration. NASA and Japan's ISAS are cooperating on the first mission to collect samples from the surface of an asteroid and return them to Earth for in-depth study. The ISAS MUSES-C mission will be launched on a Japanese launch vehicle in July 2002 from Japan toward a redezvous with the asteroid 1989ML in September 2003. A NASA-provided nanorover will conduct in-situ measurements on the surface. Asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by MUSES-C via a parachute-borne recovery capsule in June 2006. This paper describes the rover being created for this mission and related technology developments.
The MUSES-CN nanorover mission and related technology
2000 IEEE Aerospace Conference. Proceedings (Cat. No.00TH8484) ; 7 ; 287-295 vol.7
2000-01-01
1077721 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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