Skip to main content

More than meets the eye: NASA’s transforming rover for exploring distant worlds

One of the challenges of exploring distant worlds is the variety of terrains that a vehicle might encounter there. There could be flat planes, which are relatively easy to traverse in a wheeled vehicle, and there could be steep slopes, which are much harder. That’s why NASA is developing a new type of rover that can transform to take a shape most suited to the environment.

The DuAxel rover is made up of two individual rovers with two wheels each, both called Axel. Together, the four-wheeled rover can travel across rugged terrain and drive across considerable distances. But when it approaches difficult terrain, the two Axels can split apart, with the rear one staying in place while the front one moves forward on a single axel. The two remain connected by a tether, and the front half can investigate hard-to-reach objects by rappelling down slopes while staying safely connected to its back half.

Terrain The DuAxel rover is seen here participating in field tests in the Mojave Desert. The four-wheeled rover is composed of two Axel robots. One part anchors itself in place while the other uses a tether to explore otherwise inaccessible terrain.
The DuAxel rover is seen here participating in field tests in the Mojave Desert. The four-wheeled rover is composed of two Axel robots. One part anchors itself in place while the other uses a tether to explore otherwise inaccessible terrain. NASA/JPL-Caltech/J.D. Gammell

To find out if the concept worked as well in practice as it does in theory, NASA engineers took a sample of the rover to the Mojave Desert in California and put it through a series of tests that simulated the kinds of challenges a rover might encounter on another planet.

The rover aced its tests, according to Issa Nesnas, a robotics technologist at JPL: “DuAxel performed extremely well in the field, successfully demonstrating its ability to approach a challenging terrain, anchor, and then undock its tethered Axel rover. Axel then autonomously maneuvered down steep and rocky slopes, deploying its instruments without the necessity of a robotic arm.”

With the rover able to split in this way, NASA says it could allow the exploration of features like crater walls, pits, scarps, vents, and other extreme terrains on distant worlds. It’s possible that in the future, multiple Axel robots could be combined together in a modular system to haul heavy payloads, or one robot could replace another if it failed mid-mission.

“DuAxel opens up access to more extreme terrain on planetary bodies such as the moon, Mars, Mercury, and possibly some icy worlds, like Jupiter’s moon Europa,” Nesnas said.

For now, the team will continue refining DuAxel and wait for it to be assigned a destination to explore in the future.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
NASA and SpaceX Crew-6 mission ready for launch tonight
From left, NASA astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, prepare to depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a dress rehearsal for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission launch on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023.

NASA and SpaceX are ready to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station, with preparations underway and launch scheduled for late tonight PT. The Crew-6 mission is set to launch at 1:45 a.m. ET on Monday, February 27 (10:45 p.m. PT on Sunday, February 26) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a SpaceX Cargo Dragon and Falcon 9 rocket.

In a press conference following a readiness review on Saturday, February 25, NASA officials said that the crew and hardware had been given the go-ahead. "We had a good launch readiness review and we're on track for the 27 launch," said Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the International Space Station Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. "This morning I had a chance to talk to the crew. They're doing great. Spirits are high and they are ready to go."

Read more
NASA Mars rover has discovered an alien rock
A meteorite discovered on Mars in 2023.

While NASA’s newer Perseverance rover usually gets all the headlines, 11-year-old Curiosity continues to trundle across the surface of Mars in search of interesting discoveries. And it’s just made one.

Ashley Stroupe, mission operations engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is overseeing the Curiosity mission, said on JPL’s website last month that the rover had happened upon a 1-foot-wide rock that “seems to have come from elsewhere.”

Read more
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft to visit a bonus asteroid later this year
Illustration of Lucy passing by an asteroid.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft is currently traveling through the solar system on its way to study the Trojan asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter. The original plan was for the mission to make its first close approach to an asteroid in 2025, but a new plan will see the spacecraft make a flyby of a bonus asteroid later this year.

The asteroid Lucy will pass by is tiny, at just 0.4 miles across, and is currently unnamed -- it is referred to by its technical name, 1999 VD57. But it happens to be located close to the path Lucy is taking, and by making small adjustments to the its course Lucy will be able to come even closer.

Read more