NASA's CADRE Rovers Take First Autonomous Drive

Engineers prepare three small Moon-bound rovers for a drive test in a clean room at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in December 2023. Along with a base station that will be mounted on a lunar lander, the rovers make up the CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) technology demonstration. This image was taken during a test of the rovers' ability to drive together as a team autonomously, without explicit commands from engineers. If the project succeeds, future missions could include teams of robots spreading out to take simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements, potentially in support of astronauts. In this test, the rovers had their solar panels closed, and they wore protective black plastic covers over their ultralight aluminum wheels to prevent the wheels' grousers from catching on the clean room floor. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26164