NASA CADRE moon rovers will test autonomous exploration of lunar surface

Inside a cleanroom at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, three moon rovers undergo final checks before being attached to flight hardware, ahead of a proposed launch later this year. The Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration rovers, or CADRE for short, are a technology test of what NASA calls a multi-agent autonomous rover. Once on the moon, the trio will work together to autonomously complete tasks. Onboard each device are two stereo cameras, navigation sensors and ground-penetrating radar, which can create detailed 3D maps of the lunar surface.
Rather than micromanage the mission, controllers on Earth will give the rovers simple, high-level commands to achieve an overall objective, such as requesting that they search and study a specific area. How the rovers complete that task, manage obstacles, maintain communications and return the required data will largely be handled autonomously, with all three working in unison. "Fundamentally, this will change how we explore the moon or any planetary body,” says Subha Comandur, the project manager of CADRE. The rovers are scheduled to launch to the Reiner Gamma region of the moon aboard the Intuitive Machines 3 lander, where they will spend the daylight hours of a single lunar day - which is equivalent to about 14 Earth days of mission time - conducting experiments.
CADRE will help develop the technology required for more ambitious autonomous rovers in the future, enabling robust exploration of extreme environments such as lava or ice caves, the surface of Mars or even ocean worlds. “Once we show this successfully working on the moon, we could potentially send this same technology to anywhere,” says Comandur. The tech could even interact with human astronauts to return samples or be used in other vehicles such as drones, she adds. “Autonomy can really help us explore further our solar system,” says Jean-Pierre de la Croix, the principal investigator of CADRE.
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[@kellymoses8566]

Just getting a single rover to work is hard. Getting multiple rovers to work together is VERY hard.

[@bigjohn697791]

I am looking forward to seeing this mission what is the launch date for this mission I assume IM is the lander being used based on the Animations

[@RussTillling]

Awesome!

[@kellymoses8566]

Large numbers of robots working perfectly together has a huge potential. Just think of ants.

[@ApolloKid1961]

Great!

[@DarioushAryan]

bravoo

[@Africannabis]

Leave no rover behind.

[@claudiamanta1943]

This is a joke, right? What’s with those wheels? If one catches a rock at the wrong angle, it will fall. Try empty spherical ones- 5 of them (4 where the wheels are and the fifth in the centre). Each sphere to have their surface like foldable scales- it would help with traction/ energy consumption. It can rotate 360 degrees whichever way. You can program its computer to stop 1,2,3 wheels according to terrain or if they get stuck. Program it to retract one if it gets faulty and redistribute the weight so that the remaining ones can still make it move. Also, is there any particular reason for the shape and placement of the solar panels except making it as ugly and unstable as possible? Why not make the body like a cone with a rounded top, with a camera inside that can move 360 degrees looking out through a transparent band in its fuselage (or whatever you call its body)? Cover the body (minus the transparent band) with photovoltaic cells.

[@monsvillerailways5736]

Didn't NASA cancel this?

[@willempaternotte4071]

that was the viper rover, a different rover also meant for the moon'

[@hilwaamanamankiyar-pp5bf]

CADRE

[@ankursahu269]

10 trillion dollar investment of your technology advancement please sir please

[@FLORIDIANMILLIONAIRE]

We can't even get autonomous systems running well on earth seriously this is a huge waste of tax payer money

[@A3Kr0n]

$35 trillion national debt and climbing exponentially. What part of that do people not understand?

[@oznerriznick2474]

More than 50% of the US budget is spent on national defense, .5% goes to space exploration…what?