Do you remember the storm from The Martian?
Mars Drone and rover prototypes tested in Iceland this summer had to endure a gusty environment resembling the fictional storm in the 2016 film.
“I’ve never seen such crazy winds in my life,” planetary geologist Catherine Neish, associate professor at Canada’s Western University, told Space.com. “Drones can’t fly in high winds, and in this case it was so high that we didn’t want people out there either,” Neish said, noting that the storm was near hurricane conditions.
The storm was not something you would see on the Red Planet, despite The Martian’s artistic license. But the situation showed how robots and humans alike can endure harsh conditions, Neish said, and that’s key preparation for getting drones and rovers to work with human helpers moonMars and other rocky worlds.
Related: 12 amazing photos from the Perseverance rover’s first year on Mars
Iceland has already emerged as the ideal place for this carry out analog missions aiming to replicate as closely as possible the conditions that astronauts would face in the deep sea.place missions. The island features a variety of habitats that resemble otherworldly locations, including lava flows, glaciers, and mountains. Additionally, Iceland is a relatively small country, so researchers can access many types of terrain in a short field trip.
During this summer’s mission, Neish’s team explored a central Icelandic lava flow that erupted in late 2014 or early 2015. While Mars does not exhibit active volcanism, which we know the advantage of a new analog site is that it is not heavily eroded; Mars erosion is relatively slow in comparison Earthexplained Neish.
“We’ve covered this fresh surface; we’re also seeing a lot of dust and sand on Mars being blown around and deposited on the lava flows,” Neish said. “Nearby then [our site], there is actually a glacier. There’s also a lot of ice on Mars, so it really is a perfect Mars analogue.”
Related: Stunning new Mars photos explore the largest canyon in the solar system
LiDAR scan of our #RAVEN basecamp in Iceland with our new @PhoenixLiDAR backpack system. You can see our tents, tables, solar panels and even the rocks lining the trails! pic.twitter.com/pchFZVMwgrJuly 29, 2022
Dubbed the Rover-Aerial Vehicle Exploration Network (RAVEN), the field study involved humans and robots alike exploring the Holuhraun lava flow using a prototype drone built by Honeybee Robotics and equipped with a sample acquisition device. This work could be useful for NASA‘s goals to bring back Martians Rehearsals with droneshow ingenuity helicopter from the persistence Rover mission.
Also on site were the Canadian Space Agency’s Mars Exploration Science Rover (MERS) and drones from the University of Arizona, as well as staff from Canada’s MDA (which operates the Canadarm robotic arms on the International Space Station) and the University of Reykjavik Iceland.
During this field trip, the first of the project, the team wanted to operate the rovers and drones separately with remote assistance from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, which conducts real rover missions on Mars, including Perseverance and Curiosity.
Related: Stunning photos of Mars by the Curiosity rover reveal ancient climate changes
JPL engineers, Neish explained, would send commands over the Internet. Then the on-site response teams would create a plan based on the orders.
“JPL had specific science goals in mind, and then there would be an implementation team that would go into the field with the rover or drone and implement orders given to them by the operations team,” Neish said.
The teams are still analyzing data from their Iceland excursions. Further research on their findings may soon be published. Meanwhile, Neish and her staff are planning another visit in 2023.
At this point, scientists hope rovers and drones can work together more directly — and with more favorable winds.
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