FUTURE TECH
MICROBOT EXPLORERS
This new generation of all-access planetary probes will delve further than ever before
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.