ROBEX mission in the simulated Moon environment of Mount Etna comes to an end - Successful interaction between rover, lander and sensor units

DLR German Aerospace Center
- Web Portal News -

ROBEX mission in the simulated Moon environment of Mount Etna comes to an end - Successful interaction between rover, lander and sensor units


It looks simple: the rover heads straight for the landing craft, uses a gripper arm to remove a sensor unit from the loading bay and takes it quickly to the determined deposit location, where seismic measurements are then carried out. Everything takes place without human intervention, as the rover, lander and sensor unit complete their job autonomously and effectively. But behind this apparent ease are five years of hard work, during which the team from the Helmholtz Alliance ROBEX (Robotic Exploration under Extreme Conditions) laboured assiduously to make the vision of autonomous planetary exploration come true. And they succeeded on the Sicilian volcano of Mount Etna and its Moon-like lava landscape: "We managed to prove that this technology can also be used on future exploratory missions," says deputy spokesperson of the ROBEX Alliance, Armin Wedler, from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).



Full article with images: http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10081/151_read-23091/year-all/#/gallery/27370

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