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The concept could include 12 robots capable of flying or swimming, exploring caves and oceans and going where other robots could not explore. They call themselves cobots, each equipped with a propeller. The researchers imagine cobots that could meet automatically, without anyone from the Earth sending commands, forming a rolling sphere, flying independently or even creating a garland while exploring a cave.
The current prototype is more like a semi-autonomous hamster wheel with a drone in the center. It can split and form two flying drones. It is being tested as part of NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts research program. The program funds concepts that seem impossible but could help make scientific discoveries in the future.
Ali Agha, a senior JPL investigator, could see Shapeshifter exploring Titan, Saturn's moon with bodies of liquid methane on the surface. A drone landing gear called Dragonfly will leave for Titan in 2026 to follow NASA's Cassini mission observations that previously explored Saturn and Titan. Cassini could only perform Titan flybys.
Shapeshifter could actually explore the Moon itself, including possible ice volcanoes or caves hiding under its dense atmosphere.
"We have very limited information on the composition of the surface – rocky areas, methane lakes, cryovolcans – we potentially have all of this, but we are not sure of that," said Agha. "So we thought about how to create a versatile system that can cross different types of terrain, but also compact enough to launch into a rocket."
In principle, cobots could rely on a space lander capable of delivering them to Titan, providing energy and carrying instruments for experiments and analyzes. They would like the LG to be portable. If its size was similar to that of the European Space Agency's Huygens spacecraft, which was traveling with Cassini and exploring Titan, Agha estimates that 10 cobots could lift and carry the lander. The Huygens probe was 9 feet wide.
"It is common for some of the most difficult to reach places to be the most interesting from a scientific point of view, because they are perhaps the youngest, or are in an area where the orbit is not not well defined, "said Jason Hofgartner, JPL manager. scientist for Shapeshifter. "The remarkable versatility of Shapeshifter allows access to all these scientifically compelling places."
The concept will be submitted in 2020 for the Phase II selection process, with the team's hopes of spending a day at Titan.
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