NASA is testing a robot digger for exploring the moon

The topic of Mars is now more popular than ever (not only on Habré, of course). This is simply explained - several successive and super-successful (in the case of Spirit & Opportunity) missions to Mars can attract the attention of even a very spoiled person with information. But in the light of all these “Martian chronicles”, we pay less and less attention to the Earth’s closest neighbor, the Moon. But there is also a lot of interesting things, plus everything, maybe water (that is, water ice), which makes it easier to create a lunar colony. For a more thorough exploration of the moon, NASA has prepared a new spacecraft - the RASSOR robot digger.

This robot looks more like a miniature excavator than a research device. By the way, this device can be used not only on the Moon, but also on Mars, so everything is fine here. The weight of RASSOR is about 45 kilograms, which allows it to work equally well both on Earth (where tests are being conducted now) and on the Moon / Mars, where gravity is reduced compared to Earth.
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For reliable operation and movement, the device is equipped with two drums for digging, plus tracks. The load capacity of the robot is 18 kilograms, which is very good at this size and its own weight. The developers claim that RASSOR will be able to move about four times faster than Curiosity.

The project involves launching a robot on the moon with a mobile laboratory that weighs about a ton. The laboratory is mobile, which facilitates the task of delivering the obtained material. RASSOR will each time bring the "accumulated" to the base, where all this will undergo a variety of analyzes (of course, all this will be carried out automatically).



Unfortunately, it is not yet known when the robot will hit the Moon or Mars. But NASA is already hard at work on the second generation of the robot-digger.

Via theverge