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Investigation of CHEM Space Applications
Published in Witold M. Sokolowski, Cold Hibernated Elastic Memory Structure, 2018
Future planetary exploration missions to Mars and other planets/small bodies are aimed at understanding the global geology and climate history. While orbital platforms provide a detailed understanding of a surface at the order of 10–100 m resolution, detailed in-situ exploration at the sub-meter level has been limited to landed mission such as Mars Pathfinder in 1997, Mars Exploration Rover (MER) in 2003, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) in 2011. The in-situ exploration of science sites has been envisioned using mobile robots or rovers; however, due to the assumed rugged terrain, rovers may have difficulties accessing these sites due to mobility and power-availability limitations. A single rover, even with high mobility capabilities, has the limitation of surface exploration area during its lifetime. With some latest indications of possible near past/present water existence on Mars and the planned accelerated search for life, it is necessary to have lightweight, deployable, inexpensive, simple, and reliable systems to cover and explore large areas of planetary or small-body surfaces.
Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy
Published in Helmut H. Telle, Ángel González Ureña, Laser Spectroscopy and Laser Imaging, 2018
Helmut H. Telle, Ángel González Ureña
One of the most exciting and interesting ST-LIBS applications is encountered in extraterrestrial planetary space exploration. In 2004, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected a LIBS instrument to be included in its mobile Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity. The Chemistry and Camera instrument, known as ChemCam, was one of the scientific instruments onboard of Curiosity, which was launched on November 6, 2011, landing on the surface of Mars on August 6, 2012. The main objective of ChemCam was to assess the Martian environment and to explore whether it is capable of supporting microbial life. Curiosity landed in a region rich in minerals. As illustrated in Figure 15.14a, the ChemCam unit comprised two standoff sensing instruments: the actual LIBS spectroscopic unit and a remote microimager (RMI), dedicated to elemental analysis. ChemCam was set up to record, without any moving parts in its three subspectrometers, light in the UV, visible, and near-infrared regions of the spectrum, covering the range λ = 240–850 nm. While the LIBS unit recorded spectra for the determination of elemental composition, the RMI device provided the geomorphological context to assign the LIBS analysis results to particular objects on the surface of Mars.
Human-robot interaction and robots for human society
Published in Arkapravo Bhaumik, From AI to Robotics, 2018
Explorer robots have been in use since the mid-1970s for space explorations. The success of the Lunokhod programme marked the beginning for unmanned rovers: Lunokhod 1 (1971) scouted about 4 km and Lunokhod 2 (1973) marched on for about 40 km. The NASA Mars rovers were targeted to detect water on the Red Planet, Spirit (2004) and Opportunity (2004) of Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission were designed for surveying as shown in Figure 7.21, and Curiosity (2012) of Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission could undertake more sophisticated experiments to conduct surface sampling and geological studies. While all three have attained iconic status, very little of 144.8 million sq. km has been mapped, and not a great deal is yet known about the Red Planet. More recently, Rosetta mission’s Philae landed at Comet 67P. It was designed for minimal locomotion primarily by jumping and not meant for long-term surveying etc. The MER rovers are state-of-the-art engineering and communication is over data streams spread across million of kilometers and are built to endure difficult terrain over long periods of time. Spirit and Opportunity were designed to harness solar energy, while Curiosity was fueled by nuclear power. It is worth noting that none of the MER or MSL explorers were truly autonomous and the were teleoperated by the earth based NASA scientists.
Recent research and development activities on space robotics and AI
Published in Advanced Robotics, 2021
Richard Doyle, Takashi Kubota, Martin Picard, Bernd Sommer, Hiroshi Ueno, Gianfranco Visentin, Richard Volpe
The Mars 2020 Rover Mission (M2020) is largely a build-to-print duplicate of the MSL Curiosity rover, with some key upgrades for improved operations, improved mobility, and sample acquisition and caching as shown in Figure 10. Mars 2020 Rover Perseverance succeeded in landing on Martian surface on 18 Feb. 2021.