NANOKHOD MICROROVER HEADING TOWARDS MARS

Abstract

The European Space Agency has commissioned a number of development activities on micro-rovers for planetary surface missions, aiming primarily at geochemistry and exobiology science applications on Mass. This paper addresses first the background and development I~~gic of these activities and recalls part of the results of the recently completed contract MicroRobots for Scientific Applications which has produced a coweptual design of a tlight model as well ah an advanced breadboard model of a 'Nanokhod' tracked microrover. Furthermore it describes the complementar y near-term development activities.