This is a hybrid event with in-person attendance in Berger Auditorium (Skirkanich Floor B) and virtual attendance via Zoom. This week’s presenter will be in-person as well. 

ABSTRACT

This talk will summarize key recent advances in autonomous surface and aerial mobility for Mars exploration, then discuss potential future missions and technology needs for Mars and other planetary bodies. Among recent advances, the Perseverance rover that is now operating on Mars includes new autonomous navigation capability that dramatically increases its traverse speed over previous rovers. Perseverance also carried the Ingenuity helicopter to Mars, which is a technology demonstration of the first heavier-than-air aircraft ever to operate on another planet. The current mission objective for Perseverance involves driving a total distance of about 60 kilometers in about 10 Earth years. Rover mission concepts recently suggested for the Moon would drive about 1500 to 2000 km in under 4 years, which requires significant advances in autonomy. Successors to the Ingenuity helicopter are now under development for use in a mission planned for later this decade to return Mars samples to Earth that Perseverance is collecting. Much larger helicopter concepts are being studied to enable carrying larger science instrument payloads for potential future Mars missions. Robotic surface and aerial vehicles, as well as drilling systems for subsurface access, potentially could play a role in NASA’s goals for a human mission to Mars roughly two decades from now.