this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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New legged robots designed to explore planets as a team (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by very_well_lost to c/space
8 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

While rovers have made incredible discoveries, their wheels can hold them back, and erratic terrain can mean damage. There is no replacing something like Perseverance, but sometimes rovers could use a leg up, and they could get that from a small swarm of four-legged robots.

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[–] messem10 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Issue there is how does it handle loose fill material or sand/dust in its joints? That’d wear it down quick or result in it getting into an unrecoverable situation. (Wheeled rovers have a larger contact area and less likely to sink into sand.)

[–] Sanctus 5 points 1 year ago

According to the article they would be supplemental to the rovers, not as a replacement. So I'd imagine they'd be able to retreat into some sort of storage on the rover where they could hopefully be air cleaned automatically.