A Tale of Two Rovers: Mission Scenarios for Kilometer-Scale Site Survey

• Main Authors: David R. Thompson, David Wettergreen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Shackleton; South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.175.1780; http://www.davidraythompson.com/publications/2008_ICRARoverWorkshop_Thompson.pdf

Improvements in navigation autonomy present new opportunities to exploit kilometer-scale autonomous traverses. Here we review field tests of two specific new mission scenarios. The Scarab rover demonstrates extreme environment mobility in the context of a site survey mission to characterize lunar regolith in a darkened crater. The Zoë platform investigates onboard science data understanding for intelligent, adaptive data collection in a surficial mapping task. SCARAB: LUNAR REGOLITH SITE SURVEY Scarab (Figure 1) investigates technologies applicable to a site survey mission to the lunar south pole in advance of human exploration. Regolith coring and analysis would take place in permanently-shaded craters such as Shackleton Crater, where a rover could travel up to several kilometers