Globetrotter-Airbag Hopper Rover For Lunar Surface and Pit/Cave

Globetrotter is a conceptual rover currently being researched at NASA’s Mars Institute in collaboration with NASA JPL, NASA Ames Research Center, and the SETI institute Led by researcher DR. Pascal Lee. 

 

One of the major problems robotic rovers face on planetary bodies or even on earth is accessibility to the terrain. For both the lunar and Martian surface the record for the longest earth vehicle drive on these bodies is held by NASA’s rover Opportunity which has covered an impressive 45.16 km according to NASA, both Spirit and Opportunity have strategically explored a good portion of their landing site which were believed to have been affected by water in the past. On the Lunar surface, the record for the longest drive is held by the Lunokhod 2 rover developed by the USSR in 1973 but with a handful of missions to our lunar surface as of date, it is estimated that less than 0.002% of the 38 million km2 of the Moon’s area has been explored from the surface leaving a significant portion of our lunar surface unexplored. Dr. Lee and team have proposed an innovative and very cost effective design solution for rovers called “Globetrotter”. This rover is designed to reduce complications associated with soft landings of the payload on the lunar surface and a method of exploring more of the surface in a shorter amount of time than usual.

 

This unusual rover will consist of an airbag system that can take many forms, on landing the rover’s payload will have extra protection by the airbag system and will be equipped with a propulsion system basically propelling the rover to a desired location and letting it bounce on the surface like a ball. One of the reason this proposed solutions is very elegant is it allows the rover to not only just explore the surface but subsurfaces like caves and pits which is a gold mines for Martian exploration as these areas are strategic in that they are shielded from the harsh radiation the surface endures making it impossible for life to thrive.