So far the bot has been tested in a variety of rugged environments – a ski resort in Grand Junction, Colorado, in Big Bear, California, and on Mount Erebus, an active volcano in Antarctica. 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 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.