Tiny robots on Titan

Landing on other worlds has always been a struggle. You have to contend with gravity and possibly an atmosphere as you make your way to the surface, often employing complex and sophisticated landing mechanisms that are not only costly, but also risky. Apparently, though, when a team at NASA made a tensegrity structure like the one below, they accidentally dropped it on the floor and it survived, intact. They wondered if the same sort of structure could be dropped onto the surface of another world without needing to use parachutes or rockets to lower it to the surface. The answer is probably yes.

Small and low-cost missions are going to be increasingly important as we move forward in our space exploration endeavours. This particular idea involves using tensegrity structures – ones with interlocking tubes that create a net tension across the entire structure – to land on another world such as

Titan without the need for an additional landing mechanism. By being dropped from a spacecraft in orbit or flying past Titan, the structures could be left to fall through the atmosphere and land on the ground, ready to perform experiments with no mission-ending damage.

Tens or perhaps even hundreds of these small machines could be packed into a spacecraft for distribution at Titan. Each could contain different experiments, ranging from cameras to environmental sensors, while the machines would also be collapsible, allowing them to get direct analysis of the ground.

It’s an ambitious proposal, but it’s one that seems to be entirely possible. And it’s not just Titan these could be used on – the high-impact absorption of these robots means they could also be employed pretty much anywhere in the Solar System.