Roving Faster Farther Cheaper

Current Mars rovers travel a few kilometers per year. Future rovers will need to travel a couple orders of magnitude faster than that in order to move from safe landing zones to areas of scientific interest – which may be many 10s of kilometers away from a suitable landing location. This paper describes a recent field test of the SRII rover. SR-II is a 22kg solar powered autonomous rover, which during a week long traverse through rough Mars-like terrain was able to cover almost a kilometer per day.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: FSR
• Authors: Matt Roman, David P. Miller, Zac White
• Keywords: Current Mars Rovers, FSR 2007, Robotics, Safe Landing Zones, Suitable Landing Location