A trio of suitcase-size rovers and their base station have been carefully wrapped up and shipped off to join the lander that will deliver them to the Moon’s surface.

Three small NASA rovers that will explore the lunar surface as a team have been packed up and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, marking completion of the first leg of the robots’ journey to the Moon.

The rovers are part of a technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration), which aims to show that a group of robots can collaborate to gather data without receiving direct commands from mission controllers on Earth. They’ll use their cameras and ground-penetrating radars to send back imagery of the lunar surface and subsurface while testing out the novel software that enables them to work together autonomously.

The CADRE rovers will launch to the Moon aboard IM-3, Intuitive Machines’ third lunar delivery, which has a mission window that extends into early 2026, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Once installed on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, they’ll head to the Reiner Gamma region on the western edge of the Moon’s near side, where the solar-powered, suitcase-size rovers will spend the daylight hours of a lunar day (the equivalent of about 14 days on Earth) carrying out experiments. The success of CADRE could pave the way for potential future missions with teams of autonomous robots supporting astronauts and spreading out to take simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements.

Construction of the CADRE hardware — along with a battery of rigorous tests to prove readiness for the journey through space — was completed in February 2024.

To get prepared for shipment to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, each rover was attached to its deployer system, which will lower it via tether from the lander onto the dusty lunar surface. Engineers flipped each rover-deployer pair over and attached it to an aluminum plate for safe transit. The rovers were then sealed in protective metal-frame enclosures that were fitted snuggly into metal shipping containers and loaded onto a truck. The hardware arrived safely on Sunday, Feb. 9.

“Our small team worked incredibly hard constructing these robots and putting them to the test, and we have been eagerly waiting for the moment where we finally see them on their way,” said Coleman Richdale, the team’s assembly, test, and launch operations lead at JPL. “We are all genuinely thrilled to be taking this next step in our journey to the Moon, and we can’t wait to see the lunar surface through CADRE’s eyes.”

The rovers, the base station, and a camera system that will monitor CADRE experiments on the Moon will be integrated with the lander — as will several other NASA payloads — in preparation for the launch of the IM-3 mission.

More About CADRE

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The technology demonstration was selected under the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which was established to expedite the development of technologies for sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate manages the CLPS initiative. The agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company’s Pasadena facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.

For more about CADRE, go to:

https://go.nasa.gov/cadre

News Media Contact

Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov

2025-018

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NASA is collaborating with the wildland fire community to provide tools for some of the most challenging aspects of firefighting – particularly aerial nighttime operations.  

In the future, agencies could more efficiently use drones, both remotely piloted and fully autonomous, to help fight wildfires. NASA recently tested technologies with teams across the country that will enable aircraft – including small drones and helicopters outfitted with autonomous technology for remote piloting – to monitor and fight wildfires 24 hours a day, even during low-visibility conditions. 

Current aerial firefighting operations are limited to times when aircraft have clear visibility – otherwise, pilots run the risk of flying into terrain or colliding with other aircraft. NASA-developed airspace management technology will enable drones and remotely piloted aircraft to operate at night, expanding the window of time responders have to aerially suppress fires.

“We’re aiming to provide new tools – including airspace management technologies – for 24-hour drone operations for wildfire response,” said Min Xue, project manager of the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project within NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. “This testing will provide valuable data to inform how we mature this technology for eventual use in the field.” 

Over the past year, ACERO researchers developed a portable airspace management system (PAMS) drone pilots can use to safely send aircraft into wildfire response operations when operating drones from remote control systems or ground control stations.  

Each PAMS, roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, is outfitted with a computer for airspace management, a radio for sharing information among PAMS units, and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast receiver for picking up nearby air traffic – all encased in a durable and portable container. 

NASA software on the PAMS allows drone pilots to avoid airborne collisions while remotely operating aircraft by monitoring and sharing flight plans with other aircraft in the network. The system also provides basic fire location and weather information. A drone equipped with a communication device acts as an airborne communication relay for the ground-based PAMS units, enabling them to communicate with each other without relying on the internet.  

To test the PAMS units’ ability to share and display vital information, NASA researchers placed three units in different locations outside each other’s line of sight at a hangar at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

Researchers stationed at each unit entered a flight plan into their system and observed that each unit successfully shared flight plans with the others through a mesh radio network. 

Next, researchers worked with team members in Virginia to test an aerial communications radio relay capability. 

Researchers outfitted a long-range vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a camera, computer, a mesh radio, and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast receiver for air traffic information.

The team flew the aircraft and two smaller drones at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, purposely operating them outside each other’s line of sight.  

The mesh radio network aboard the larger drone successfully connected with the small drones and multiple radio units on the ground. 

NASA researchers then tested the PAMS units’ ability to coordinate through an aerial communications relay to simulate what it could be like in the field.  

At Monterey Bay Academy Airport in Watsonville, California, engineers flew a winged drone with vertical takeoff and landing capability by Overwatch Aero, establishing a communications relay to three different PAMS units. Next, the team flew two smaller drones nearby.  

Researchers tested the PAMS units’ ability to receive communications from the Overwatch aircraft and share information with other PAMS units. Pilots purposely submitted flight plans that would conflict with each other and intentionally flew the drones outside preapproved flight plans. 

The PAMS units successfully alerted pilots to conflicting flight plans and operations outside preapproved zones. They also shared aircraft location with each other and displayed weather updates and simulated fire location data. 

The test demonstrated the potential for using PAM units in wildfire operations.  

“This testing is a significant step towards improving aerial coordination during a wildfire,” Xue said. “These technologies will improve wildfire operations, reduce the impacts of large wildfires, and save more lives,” Xue said.  

This year, the team will perform a flight evaluation to further mature these wildfire technologies. Ultimately, the project aims to transfer this technology to the firefighting community community. 

This work is led by the ACERO project under NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and supports the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission.  

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As air taxis, drones, and other innovative aircraft enter U.S. airspace, systems that communicate an aircraft’s location will be critical to ensure air traffic safety.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires aircraft to communicate their locations to other aircraft and air traffic control in real time using an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. NASA is currently evaluating an ADS-B system’s ability to prevent collisions in a simulated urban environment. Using NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, researchers are investigating how these systems could handle the demands of air taxis flying at low altitudes through cities.  

When operating in urban areas, one particular challenge for ADS-B systems is consistent signal coverage. Like losing cell-phone signal, air taxis flying through densely populated areas may have trouble maintaining ADS-B signals due to distance or interference. If that happens, those vehicles become less visible to air traffic control and other aircraft in the area, increasing the likelihood of collisions.

To simulate the conditions of an urban flight area and better understand signal loss patterns, NASA researchers established a test zone at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Sept. 23 and 24, 2024.

Flying in the agency’s Pilatus PC-12 in a grid pattern over four ADS-B stations, researchers collected data on signal coverage from multiple ground locations and equipment configurations. Researchers were able to pinpoint where signal dropouts occurred from the strategically placed ground stations in connection to the plane’s altitude and distance from the stations. This data will inform future placement of additional ground stations to enhance signal boosting coverage.  

“Like all antennas, those used for ADS-B signal reception do not have a constant pattern,” said Brad Snelling, vehicle test team chief engineer for NASA’s Air Mobility Pathfinders project. “There are certain areas where the terrain will block ADS-B signals and depending on the type of antenna and location characteristics, there are also flight elevation angles where reception can cause signal dropouts,” Snelling said. “This would mean we need to place additional ground stations at multiple locations to boost the signal for future test flights. We can use the test results to help us configure the equipment to reduce signal loss when we conduct future air taxi flight tests.”

The September flights at NASA Armstrong built upon earlier tests of ADS-B in different environments. In June, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland flew the Pilatus PC-12 and found a consistent ADS-B signal between the aircraft and communications antennas mounted on the roof of the center’s Aerospace Communications Facility. Data from these flights helped researchers plan out the recent tests at NASA Armstrong. In December 2020, test flights performed under NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign used an OH-58C Kiowa helicopter and ground-based ADS-B stations at NASA Armstrong to collect baseline signal information.

NASA’s research in ADS-B signals and other communication, navigation, and surveillance systems will help revolutionize U.S. air transportation. Air Mobility Pathfinders researchers will evaluate the data from the three separate flight tests to understand the different signal transmission conditions and equipment needed for air taxis and drones to safely operate in the National Air Space. NASA will use the results of this research to design infrastructure to support future air taxi communication, navigation, and surveillance research and to develop new ADS-B-like concepts for uncrewed aircraft systems.

The mystique of Mars has been studied for centuries. The fourth planet from the Sun is reminiscent of a rich, red desert and features a rugged surface challenging to traverse. While several robotic missions have landed on Mars, NASA has only explored 1% of its surface. Ahead of future human and robotic missions to the Red Planet, NASA recently completed rigorous rover testing on Martian-simulated terrain, featuring revolutionary shape memory alloy spring tire technology developed at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland in partnership with Goodyear Tire & Rubber.

Rovers — mobile robots that explore lunar or planetary surfaces — must be equipped with adequate tires for the environments they’re exploring. As Mars has an uneven, rocky surface, durable tires are essential for mobility. Shape memory alloy (SMA) spring tires help make that possible.

Shape memory alloys are metals that can return to their original shape after being bent, stretched, heated, and cooled. NASA has used them for decades, but applying this technology to tires is a fairly new concept.

“We at Glenn are one of the world leaders in bringing the science and understanding of how you change the alloy compositions, how you change the processing of the material, and how you model these systems in a way that we can control and stabilize the behaviors so that they can actually be utilized in real applications,” said Dr. Santo Padula II, materials research engineer at NASA Glenn.

Padula and his team have tested several applications for SMAs, but his epiphany of the possibilities for tires came about because of a chance encounter.

While leaving a meeting, Padula encountered Colin Creager, a mechanical engineer at NASA Glenn whom he hadn’t seen in years. Creager used the opportunity to tell him about the work he was doing in the NASA Glenn Simulated Lunar Operations (SLOPE) Laboratory, which can simulate the surfaces of the Moon and Mars to help scientists test rover performance. He brought Padula to the lab, where Padula immediately took note of the spring tires. At the time, they were made of steel.

Padula remarked, “The minute I saw the tire, I said, aren’t you having problems with those plasticizing?” Plasticizing refers to a metal undergoing deformation that isn’t reversible and can lead to damage or failure of the component.

“Colin told me, ‘That’s the only problem we can’t solve.’” Padula continued, “I said, I have your solution. I’m developing a new alloy that will solve that. And that’s how SMA tires started.”

From there, Padula, Creager, and their teams joined forces to improve NASA’s existing spring tires with a game-changing material: nickel-titanium SMAs. The metal can accommodate deformation despite extreme stress, permitting the tires to return to their original shape even with rigorous impact, which is not possible for spring tires made with conventional metal.

Since then, research has been abundant, and in the fall of 2024, teams from NASA Glenn traveled to Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, United Kingdom, to test NASA’s innovative SMA spring tires. Testing took place at the Airbus Mars Yard — an enclosed facility created to simulate the harsh conditions of Martian terrain.

“We went out there with the team, we brought our motion tracking system and did different tests uphill and back downhill,” Creager said. “We conducted a lot of cross slope tests over rocks and sand where the focus was on understanding stability because this was something we had never tested before.”

During the tests, researchers monitored rovers as the wheels went over rocks, paying close attention to how much the crowns of the tires shifted, any damage, and downhill sliding. The team expected sliding and shifting, but it was very minimal, and testing met all expectations. Researchers also gathered insights about the tires’ stability, maneuverability, and rock traversal capabilities.

As NASA continues to advance systems for deep space exploration, the agency’s Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility program enlisted Padula to research additional ways to improve the properties of SMAs for future rover tires and other potential uses, including lunar environments.

“My goal is to extend the operating temperature capability of SMAs for applications like tires, and to look at applying these materials for habitat protection,” Padula said. “We need new materials for extreme environments that can provide energy absorption for micrometeorite strikes that happen on the Moon to enable things like habitat structures for large numbers of astronauts and scientists to do work on the Moon and Mars.”

Researchers say shape memory alloy spring tires are just the beginning.

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