CADRE Rover Prototypes Drive in Formation

Figure A

Prototypes of the rovers being built for NASA's CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) technology demonstration were tested at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in August 2022.

CADRE is a technology demonstration designed to show that multiple robots can cooperate and explore together autonomously – without direct input from human mission controllers. By taking simultaneous measurements from multiple locations, CADRE will also demonstrate how multirobot missions can record data impossible for a single robot to achieve – a tantalizing prospect for future missions.

The CADRE team dubbed the seven plastic test prototypes the "Mercury 7" and named each after one of NASA's seven Project Mercury astronauts. John (for John Glenn) and Scott (for Scott Carpenter) are shown here in a sandbox during a test of the rovers' capability for driving in formation. The formation-driving algorithm will be used to help CADRE rovers map the lunar surface and subsurface with cameras and sensors.

Figure A is a closer shot of the two rovers.

The prototypes are smaller than the three CADRE rovers slated to arrive at the Moon aboard a lander in spring 2024 as part of NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Those flight models will be about the size of a carry-on suitcase.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. The technology demonstration will launch as a payload on the third lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines, called IM-3, under the CLPS initiative, which is managed by NASA's Science Mission Directorate, also in Washington. The agency's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, have both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company's Pasadena, California, facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.

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