NASA developing hopping drones to explore Martian caves for human settlement

#NASA #Mars #humansettlement Mars is beckoning humans and, while preparations are on by different agencies to send humans to the Red Planet Mars, NASA has gone one step ahead and is developing hopping drones - they will be programmed to go into caves on Mars and try to zero in on probable locations where humans can have their settlements.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 30 December 2015.

The drones will be capable to hop into caves and along 'lava tunnels' beneath the surface of Mars which will be used to find the first human home on the red planet.
NASA has awarded funding to scientists and engineers who have been asked to develop a robotic scout that will be able to make short flights above the Martian surface before descending into caves. NASA hopes that it may be possible for astronauts to shelter in the subterranean world that exists within a networks of lava tubes on Mars. That will protect them from harmful radiation.
And - in order to carry out this exercise and explore these tunnels, which had been formed billions of years ago, the team of researchers are developing an autonomous drone that can pick its way through the darkness. In other words, it will hop from location to location by using a combination of a spring and gas powered thrusters.
These drones would need to be able to navigate itself through the pitch black, rocky environment after first lowering down up to 1,000ft through one of the many 'skylights' that have been noticed on the surface of Mars.
Work on developing such drones have started by engineers at private space company Astrobotic Technology and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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