From the moment the Soviet Union landed Lunokhod 1 on the Moon in November 1970, scientists have been working tirelessly to F create more efficient and effective methods for searching a planet’s surface. We have seen rovers, landers and probes, but a team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is working on microbots, the next generation of planetary investigators. These tiny spherical robots – often no larger than a baseball – are able to hop, bounce and roll around the surface of a planet, get into crevices and negotiate obstacles in ways that traditional rovers can’t.
Engineers are hoping to reduce microbots to just ten centimetres (four inches) in diameter and have them weighing no more than 100 grams so they are able to get themselves into hard-to-reach places. They would be constructed of lightweight polymers and carry miniaturised scientific equipment for research. Many of the key components encased in the machines will be around the size of a coin, with the mass spectrometer measuring just 0.6 cubic centimetres (0.04 cubic inches).