Skypersonic, a subsidiary of Purple Cat Holdings, Inc. publicizes at present that it lately delivered to NASA the {hardware} and software program for a rover and drone system that the crew members of NASA’s Simulated Mars Missions will use to remotely discover Martian-like terrain round Earth – all from their 1,700-square-foot simulated Martian habitat on the Johnson Area Heart in Houston, Texas.
Within the Simulated Mars Missions CHAPEA, crew members will spend one yr dwelling and dealing in a habitat at Johnson Area Heart that has been designed and constructed to simulate life on the Purple Planet. The Skypersonic drones and rover might be taken to an space on Earth that’s much like Martian terrain – resembling a desert or mountainous area – the place they are going to be managed remotely by crew members in Houston. The train is designed to check the flexibility of astronauts on Mars to remotely discover the planet with drones and rovers.
The {hardware} and software program delivered to Houston have been confirmed in August 2022, when NASA personnel stationed on the Johnson Area Heart managed the Skypersonic drones and rover on the Martian-like setting of Mt. Etna, an lively volcano hundreds of miles away in Italy. Not solely was the floor of the volcano like that of Mars, however there is no such thing as a GPS sign on Mt. Etna, which gave NASA personnel perception into how the know-how would carry out on a Martian floor. As a result of its proprietary distant piloting know-how doesn’t depend on GPS, Skypersonic permits pilots, and the drones or rovers they management, to be positioned nearly anyplace on this planet – or out of this world.
“This current supply is the newest milestone in our five-year contract with NASA to offer drone and rover {hardware}, software program, and help to the Simulated Mars Missions. We stay up for working intently with the Simulated Mars Missions crews within the coming years to develop and check the prototype of the primary drones and rovers for use by people on Mars. The challenges are nice – extraordinarily skinny environment, dramatically chilly temperatures, a largely unknown setting – however I’m assured we are going to prevail and advance the science of our trade within the course of,” mentioned Skypersonic CEO Giuseppe Santangelo.
NASA personnel educated on piloting the lately delivered drones with Skypersonic’s Martian Simulator, a computer-simulation of the Martian setting based mostly on precise pictures and video of the floor of Mars.
