The AstroAnt is a tiny robot that will be sent to the Lunar South Pole. It will do inspection sensing from the outside of a Lunar rover. The data collected by the AstroAnt will be used to monitor the performance of the rover.
The AstroAnts constitute a miniature robotic swarm for inspections and diagnostic tasks on the external surfaces of spacecraft, rovers, and landers. Each robot features a modular design; the sensor payloads can be tailored based on different inspection missions, and the data collected from the robots can be used to monitor the operations of the spacecraft, rovers, and landers. Working with Lunar Outpost, we are sending one AstroAnt robot to the Moon for a technology demonstration test. The AstroAnt robot will be working on the top surface of the MAPP-1 rover. With a thermopile equipped, the AstroAnt can do contactless temperature measurements of the rover’s top panel, which is the radiator of the thermal system. We can use the data collected to monitor the performance of the rover’s thermal system.