Mars rover

Just a few months after Nasa’s Mars rover, Perseverance, made its successful landing, many spacetech companies are lining up to try their hand in the race. 2020 and 2021 are remarkable years in the history of mission to space. Mars reaches its closes point to earth every 26 months. That is like the golden time for spacetech companies. Therefore, countries like the US, Russia, and China have planed mars mission during that period. After governments across the globe commercialized space innovations, the number of frontrunners drastically surged. Today, many robotic researchers are trying out new methods to conquer the space mission.

Mars is a fascinating planet. Located after earth in the solar system, the red planet is icy cold and covered with reddish dust and dirt. What makes Mars similar to earth is the presence of volcanoes, gullies, and flat plains on the planet. Scientists have vigorously worked on finding the possibility of living organisms on Mars. But so far, there is no big improvement because the distance between Earth and Mars is very void and operating a rover from the globe felt like an insane process. Despite the distractions, NASA has so far sent five mars rovers namely Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance. Even though many of them failed to make a cut, Perseverance outperformed the rest and managed to make a smooth landing. On February 18, 2021, Perseverance became the first artificial object to land on Mars since the Insight Mars in 2018. The Mars rover is the most advanced robotic technology NASA has sent to another planet. Besides, Perseverance is also powered by an autonomous system that automatically operates in space without the need for human intervention.

One thing that NASA didn’t change throughout its Mars Rover journey is the type of vehicle it pushed to the red planet. Starting from Sojourner to the recent Perseverance, everything had wheels to travel through the rough surface. Although it is a good idea to power the vehicle with flexible legs attached, the emerging trends in spacetech are proving otherwise. Spacetech companies are engaged in making Mars rovers with robotic legs instead of wheels, which could make their movement in the red planet easy.

SpaceBok, a walking Mars Rover

Engineers from ETH Zurich, a Switzerland-based company and the Max Planck Institute in Germany have come up with a small quadrupedal robot that can travel and sustain on the rough and uneven surface. Originally designed for a mission to Moon, SpaceBok is now being redirected to Mars on its space journey. However, Spacebok needs to power up in order to survive on Mars because the red planet has stronger gravity than on the Moon and the terrains are also strong there.

But if successfully landed on the Mars’ surface, SpaceBok will be able to come out with more information above the red planet. So far, wheeled vehicles were roaming on plains and plateaus of Mars, keeping their distance from tough terrains. Fortunately, SpaceBok, the walking Mars rover can explore the unexplored parts of the red planet.