European aircraft giant Airbus recently tested its Mars Sample Fetch Rover and ExoMars rovers. The launch of both of them has been delayed, so for now they are demonstrating their ability to autonomously drive and collect samples in a quarry near London.
Mars rover test
Recently, a quarry near London became the center of events during which it pretended to be Mars. It was there that European aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus tested two of its Mars rovers. Both tests took place in fully autonomous mode, i.e. the robots made decisions about where to go and where to take samples from without human input.
The first of them was the Mars Sample Fetch Rover, a four-wheeled vehicle with its own name, Codi. It got the coordinates where the capsule was hidden, supposedly with soil samples collected on the surface, and went off to take it. In this process, it used the built-in maps and navigation system exclusively. The trials were considered a success.
The rover moves quite slowly, at a speed of up to 7 centimeters per second. However, it does it quite confidently. It also has a high-tech robotic arm to collect samples.
Mars Sample Fetch Rover was started to be developed back in 2018, and it has already rode earlier along this quarry. However, it didn’t have to collect samples then. And already in 2026, it was supposed to go to the red planet. But in 2022, NASA canceled the mission as part of budget cuts. Now Airbus officials are looking for other ways to use the technology to explore Mars or the Moon.
Fate of ExoMars
Even more interesting is the situation with the second vehicle, which can be conventionally called ExoMars. The fact is that this is the name of the entire project of Mars exploration by European vehicles. Usually the rover that was to fly to the red planet is called Rosalind Franklin. However, this refers only to the copy that was supposed to fly.
It was supposed to take place as early as 2022. However, it was to be flown in the Russian Proton. And then Russia started a large-scale aggression against Ukraine. And all contacts with it had to be broken off. Since then, Rosalind Franklin has been stored in a “clean room” in Turin and awaits the possibility of a new space voyage.
Meanwhile, Airbus is testing a replica of it called Charlie in a quarry off London. It’s actually quite a fascinating vehicle. It is capable of traversing the most difficult terrain on its own without being endangered.
However, it does this phenomenally slowly — at a speed of 1 cm/s. This is the problem that engineers are now trying to solve.
According to www.space.com
