NASA has teamed up with Boston Dynamics for BRAILLE, or the caves of Mars project, using autonomous robots. These areas on the Red Planet are one of the most likely places to find signs of both current and past life since they’re capable of protecting life from cosmic rays as well as extreme temperature fluctuations. BRAILLE will have modified Spot robots exploring Mars-like caves that are located right here on Earth in order to develop key technologies for future space missions.
The types of caves that Spot will explore measure several hundred meters long and have limited communication with the surface. As they explore the caves with no prior information about the environment provided, a team of researchers outside will simultaneously performs actions that scientists on Earth would be executing during a real space mission.
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Future potential human exploration missions can benefit from robots in many different ways. Particularly, robots can be sent in precursor missions to provide more information about the destination before humans land on those destinations. In addition, robots can accompany astronauts during the missions to help with scouting certain terrains or with logistics and many tasks that can make astronauts’ missions safer and more efficient,” said Ali Agha, lead project researcher, to CBS News.
