Western News International Collaboration Promotes Drones As The Next Big Step In Planetary Exploration

While Hollywood loves to pit iconic characters against each other in a summer blockbuster, even those who fight the same good fight, that’s not the case for planetary scientists exploring the Moon, Mars and beyond. Earth science professor Catherine Neish led a group of Western students to Iceland for two weeks this summer (July 10 to August 10) to work with scientists and engineers from NASA, the University of Arizona, Honeybee Robotics, MDA and the University of Reykjavík in the RAVEN (Rover–Aerial Vehicle Exploration Network) Field Study to test the many benefits of deploying drones and rovers together, as a superhero-style team, to advance autonomous exploration for future space missions. Catherine Neish “Drone technology is the next big step in planetary exploration. It allows us to reach areas we could never reach on the ground faster and more efficiently,” said Neish. An expert in astrobiology and impact cratering, Neish uses new technologies, including radar, lidar (light detection and ranging), rovers and drones, to study the geology of planetary surfaces “If you use a rover and a drone together, you can maximize the area you can cover. Drones can access areas that rovers cannot. But drones are so small that you can’t carry a lot of equipment or instruments on them, so you also need rovers,” said Neish, also a faculty member at the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration (Western Space). “With drones and rovers together, you’re really maximizing your science output rather than using either one alone,” Neish said. RAVEN Principal Investigator Christopher Hamilton of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory operating the DJI Matrice 300. Photo by Gavin Tolometti At the Holuhraun lava flow in central Iceland, Neish and her international partners from academia, government and industry tested the RAVEN Claw – a prototype drone, developed by Honeybee Robotics, that is fully equipped with a customizable device sampling and its own sensor payload to measure everything from land formation to atmospheric chemistry. The team also worked with the Mars Exploration Science Rover (MERS) from the Canadian Space Agency and drones from the University of Arizona. “Iceland is an excellent analogue of Mars. It is ice cold like we see on Mars and it is also very dry. It has fresh lava flows covered by sand. Honestly, it’s one of the best Mars analogs I’ve ever seen. It has all the same geological processes that we see on Mars,” Neish said. Gavin Tolometti Western Space postdoctoral researcher Gavin Tolometti joined Neish in Iceland and served as project manager. Tolometti worked on the rover team with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineer and Western European graduate Raymond Francis and MDA engineer Chris Langley along with Western European graduate student Jamie Graff, who used the LIBS instrument (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) to obtain the chemical composition for the planar. Graduate students Jahnavi Shah and Elisa Dong worked on drone business and drone application, respectively. Neish primarily studied sand ramps that have formed at the edge of Holuhraun’s lava flow over the past seven years since it formed, while graduate student Reid Perkins used a backpack lidar system to take precise topography data and probe the underground structure with GPR (ground penetrating radar). Western graduate and current JPL postdoctoral researcher Shannon Hibbard also participated in this work. NASA JPL postdoc and Western graduate student Shannon Hibbard (left), PhD student Jamie Graff (center left), MSc student Elisa Dong (center right), and PhD student Reid Perkins (right) built and tested science equipment for the RAVEN mission. Photo by Gavin Tolometti This summer, the RAVEN team operated the drone and rover separately, as researchers wanted to assess the science output for two autonomous operations. Next year, Neish and her colleagues plan to return to Iceland to integrate drones and rovers into an operational strategy. Catherine Neish (center) and NASA JPL engineer Raymond Francis (left) on Jökulsá á Fjöllum, Iceland’s second longest river (206 km). Photo by Gavin Tolometti “We’re really excited to see the results from this summer and learn more about how sand can hide lava flows on Earth and Mars,” said Neish. “Next year, we’ll have the rover direct the drone and use the two in parallel, and then we’ll compare the data from this summer to see which approach works best.” Neish says that the RAVEN field study in Iceland and the planned return next year is very important because NASA has just announced that the samples retrieved by the Perseverance rover will be collected by a drone for safe transfer to the spacecraft before they are finally returned on earth . “We need some way for the drones to get the samples, so Honeybee, with our input, is looking at different technologies to extract samples from a drone, which has never been done before,” Neish said. “It’s very exciting and a great opportunity for our students.” The Canadian Space Agency’s Mars Exploration Science Rover (MERS) in the field with the Vatnajökull glacier in the background. Photo by Gavin Tolometti

title: “Western News International Collaboration Promotes Drones As The Next Big Step In Planetary Exploration Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-17” author: “John Delorenzo”

title: “Western News International Collaboration Promotes Drones As The Next Big Step In Planetary Exploration Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-10” author: “Mary Powers”

title: “Western News International Collaboration Promotes Drones As The Next Big Step In Planetary Exploration Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-03” author: “Melinda Sanford”