Posts tagged "probe"

Science

Japanese Hopping Robotic Rovers Land On Asteroid

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Japanese Hopping Robotic Rovers Land On Asteroid
They Made It! Japan's Two Hopping Rovers Successfully Land on Asteroid Ryugu
They Made It! Japan’s Two Hopping Rovers Successfully Land on Asteroid Ryugu
In order to complete the deployment, the main spacecraft of the Hayabusa2 mission lowered itself carefully down toward the surface until it was just 180 feet (55 meters) up. After the rovers were on their way, the spacecraft raised itself back up to its typical altitude of about 12.5 miles above the asteroid’s surface (20 kilometers).

 

Science Technology

Robot ‘Bees’ For Mars Exploration

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Robot ‘Bees’ For Mars Exploration
NASA funds project to study feasibility of using robot bees to study Mars from a new perspective
NASA funds project to study feasibility of using robot bees to study Mars from a new perspective
NASA has announced that it has awarded funding to a combined team of researchers from the University of Alabama and an unnamed team in Japan for development of a new kind of Mars explorer. The project team has been awarded $125,000 to develop what NASA calls Marsbees: a swarm of robot bees that could fly in the thin Martian atmosphere and deliver information from their sensors.
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-nasa-funds-feasibility-robot-bees.html
New NASA plan for Mars is moderately-terrifying-sounding, also, completely-awesome: Robotic. Bees.
New NASA plan for Mars is moderately-terrifying-sounding, also, completely-awesome: Robotic. Bees.
Marsbees would be a swarm of “bumblebee size” flapping robots that could cover a far greater distance (with a lot less effort) than a rover could. But that doesn’t mean a rover would be left out: a rover would serve as a recharge station and main communications hub for the bees.
(Header image courtesy NASA)