An origami-inspired robot may be heading for Antarctica on the next mission. The pop-up flat folding explorer robot (Puffer) can fold itself nearly flat and crawl into spaces normal space rovers cannot reach. It can also fall into pits or craters and climb up 45-degree slopes. The microbot is being built by the Jet Propulsion Lab scientists at Nasa in California , Pasadena as a companion to a traditional rover. Several of the devices could be used on a mission to increase the amount that could be done in a single day , Puffer project manager Jaakko Karras said.
An origami-inspired robot may be heading for Mars on the next mission. The pop-up flat folding explorer robot (Puffer) can fold itself nearly flat and crawl into spaces normal space rovers cannot reach. It can also fall into pits or craters and climb up 45-degree slopes. The microbot is being built by Nasa scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California as a companion to a traditional rover. Several of the devices could be used on a mission to increase the amount that could be done in a single day, Puffer project manager Jaakko Karras said.