Bremen, Mar. 9, (dpa/GNA) - Autonomous rovers have explored a lava cave on Lanzarote as a kind of test run for the moon, the German centre coordinating the project said on Wednesday.
Exploring the cave was “hopefully a step closer to a real moon mission,” said Thomas Vögele of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), according to a statement.
The CoRob-X project, funded by the European Union, was based at a DFKI site in Bremen in north-west Germany.
The technologies used during the exploration of the cave could be used on the moon in the future as one goal of international space travel is to establish a permanent station on the Earth’s satellite.
Craters and caves are particularly suitable locations for a station because they offer protection from radiation, meteorites and temperature fluctuations. But before humans enter the craters and caves, autonomous robots could investigate them.
The CoRob-X researchers tested the rovers on Lanzarote because the island with its lava tunnels offers good conditions for this.
According to the DFKI, the test consisted of several steps: First, a rover transported a so-called sensor cube into the interior of the cave – and provided a 3-D map of the entrance. Another rover then roped a third down to the cave floor. This rover explored the terrain and created a map of the surroundings.
GNA