Roving on Phobos: Challenges of the MMX Rover for Space Robotics

Abstract

This paper presents a small rover for exploration mission dedicated to the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. This project is a collaboration between JAXA for the mother spacecraft, and a cooperative contribution of CNES and DLR to provide a rover payload. This rover will be different in many aspects compared to the existing ones. It will have to drive in a very low gravity with only little power given by the solar arrays. It will also need autonomy in order to achieve a consequent distance during a short mission of 100 days. Apart of the technology demonstration driven mission aspects, the first objective after landing for the rover is to secure the mother spacecraft landing through a characterization of the soil (regolith). Hence, in the nominal rover definition, several payloads are foreseen in order to contribute to the mission of the main spacecraft: to determine the origin of Martian moons.