The latest news about space exploration astrophysics, the
universe... Posted: Jan 2nd, 2013 Robotic platform that could
take space exploration to new heights (Nanowerk News) Stanford
researchers, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have
designed a robotic platform that could take space exploration to
new heights. The mission proposed for the platform involves a
mother spacecraft deploying one or several spiked, roughly
spherical rovers to the Martian moon Phobos. Measuring about
half a meter wide, each rover would hop, tumble and bound across
the cratered, lopsided moon, relaying information about its
origins, as well as its soil and other surface materials.
Illustration of how the mother spacecraft Phobos Surveyor and
its 'hedgehogs' would work. Developed by Marco Pavone, an
assistant professor in Stanford's Department of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, the system relies on a synergistic relationship
between the mother spacecraft, known as the P