Canadian Space Agency rolls out prototype planetary rovers

Eight Canadian prototype rovers are slated to become the next technological step forward for Lunar and Martian exploration. Industry Minister Christian Paradis and Steve MacLean, president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), revealed the new prototypes on Friday.

"Canada's reputation for excellence has been carved out through decades of innovation and technological advances such as the iconic Canadarm, Canadarm2 and Dextre. That legacy continues with the Next Generation Canadarm and these pioneer terrestrial rovers." said Paradis, according to a CSA news release.

The prototypes demonstrated their abilities on the CSA's Mars Emulation Terrain testing field, on the property of CSA Headquarters in Montreal.

One of the prototypes, Juno, is a multiple-configuration rover developed by Neptec Design Group Ltd, a spaceflight engineering company located just outside Ottawa. Juno is just one rover, however, it was demonstrated as a group of five separate robotic rovers, each showing off a specific configuration that Juno could take for its missions. The modular design makes it ideal to accompany astronauts on the Lunar or Martian surface, acting as science platform, support, cargo transport, or even to transport the astronauts themselves.

Another development of Neptec, the Artemis Jr. rover, is also intended to work alongside astronauts, specifically for lunar exploration, but is capable of operating independently as well. Just under two metres tall, the rover gets around on four fixed wheels that steer by changing the speed of the wheels on opposite sides of the rover — called 'skid-steering' — which the rover can use to turn 360 degrees on the spot. This rover already completed its first field tests in July, as part of NASA's Regolith and Environment Science & Oxygen and Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) payload.

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Next up were three contributions from MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), developers of the Canadarm, Canadarm2 and DEXTRE, the APXS instrument for the Mars Curiosity rover and instruments for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

The Mars Exploration Science Rover (MESR) is a six-wheeled robotic geologist that may be part of the Mars Sample Return Mission currently being planned.

The Lunar Exploration Light Rover is a long-range rover designed to be a mobile Moon lab, supporting lunar explorers in sample gathering and scientific analysis. It can be upgraded to allow astronauts to ride on it (similar to the old Moon buggies), and it can operate independently using LIDAR to navigate.

Rex (short for Robot EXplorer) is a prototype Mars rover that was named in History TV contest. Its design includes a robotic arm that it used to simulate collection of rock and soil samples during the CSA demonstration.

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Also revealed were two micro-rovers — the Kapvik Micro-Rover and the Micro-Rover Platform with Tooling Arm (MRPTA).

Kapvik (Innu for "Wolverine") is built by MPB Communications, along with MDA, Carleton University, Ryerson University, University of Toronto, University of Winnipeg and Xiphos Technologies, and is designed as a helper robot for astronauts or for other, larger rovers. Like the other rovers, it can be controlled by a human operator or operate with full autonomy, and it has a robotic arm with sensors that it can use to analyze its surroundings, pick out targets and collect samples for study.

The MRPTA, which is even smaller than Kapvik, is designed by Engineering Services Inc, and is also a 'companion' to either an astronaut or larger rover. This particular robot is the only one of its class that can change its centre of gravity on-the-fly, which makes it extremely good at climbing steep slopes.

Last up is a rover that looks a bit more like something you'd want when you're driving around on the surface of another world: the SL-Commander. Based on Bombardier Recreational Products' BRP Commander All-Terrain Vehicle, this completely-electric ATV is capable of navigating and driving itself with no human intervention. It can reach speeds of up to 40 km/h! As a spin-off from this design, Bombardier has begun manufacturing and distributing an Earth-based version of the SL-Commander (although, somehow I doubt that it will include the autonomous functions).

The final versions of these prototypes are still a ways off. According to the CBC News story, Gilles Leclerc, director-general of space exploration for the CSA, said:

"The horizon we're looking at in terms of taking the technologies on these terrestrial prototypes and transferring them into a real space mission to the moon or Mars is about 2020."

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