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Dubbed CADRE, a trio of lunar rovers are set to demonstrate an autonomous exploration capability on the Moon.<\/em><\/p>\n An exciting Moon mission launching in the next year will perform a first, deploying multiple rovers. These will talk to each other and a remote base station, demonstrating an autonomous exploration capability.<\/p>\n The three Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) rovers were recently packaged and shipped from their home at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Each about the size of a small suitcase, the CADRE rovers will launch from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket with Intuitive Machines\u2019 IM-3 mission in late 2025 or early 2026. The ultimate destination is the enigmatic Reiner Gamma region in the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms) region on the lunar nearside.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Robotic lunar rovers go all the way back to the late Soviet Union\u2019s Lunokod-1 rover on the Luna 17 mission in 1970. CADRE, however, will demonstrate that three rovers can work in unison for lunar exploration. This sort of rover network could come in handy, allowing astronaut controllers to one day explore regions too dangerous to venture into.<\/p>\n To this end, the Nova-C lander will lower the solar-powered rovers to the surface shortly after touchdown. Engineers equipped each rover with cameras and ground-penetrating radars for exploration. Controllers expect the rovers to last two weeks (14 days) on the surface, from local sunrise to sunset.<\/p>\n \u201cOur small team worked incredibly hard constructing these robots and putting them to the test,\u201d says Coleman Richdale (NASA-JPL) in a recent press release. \u201cWe are all genuinely thrilled to be taking this next step in our journey to the Moon, and we can\u2019t wait to see the lunar surface through CADRE\u2019s eyes.\u201d<\/p>\nA Robotic Lunar Trio<\/h2>\n