Photo credit: Fangzheng Liu
MIT researchers partnered with Castrol to develop AstroAnt, a tiny robot designed to sit atop the lunar rover and gather data. These versatile miniature swarm robots can be used to perform inspections and diagnostic tasks on external surfaces of spacecraft, rovers, and landers.
Each individual AstroAnt robot boasts a modular design, enabling engineers to customize sensor payloads based on the needs of various inspection missions that can then be used to collect data for monitoring operations in space. Thanks to LunarOutpost, AstroAnts will be deployed on a Lunar Outpost MAPP rover to the lunar south pole in 2025, transported there by an Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
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Through this research collaboration, Castrol is supporting the MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative and Responsive Environments research groups. Castrol collaborated with MIT on their AstroAnt research, looking at why testing in extreme environments is vital to accelerate progress,” said the team.
