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Astrobiology Technology – Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies

Soil collected by the ARADS rover is poured by a scoop into metal funnels on the rover’s top platform,
The ARADS rover prototype features a robotic arm that is programmed to collect soil samples from the rover’s drill and deliver them to a set of onboard instruments.

The ARADS rover prototype features a robotic arm that is programmed to collect soil samples from the rover’s drill and deliver them to a set of onboard instruments. Soil collected in the arm’s scoop is poured into metal funnels on the rover’s top platform, which lead to three life-detection instruments located below. Functioning autonomously without direct human control, they are able to analyze the soils for molecules that could be indicators of life.

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The Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies, or ARADS, project is designing tools and techniques that could be used to search for life one day on Mars or other places in the Solar System. The team’s prototype rover combines the ability to move across the surface, drill down to collect soil samples, and feed them to several life-detection instruments on board. The extreme conditions of Chile’s Atacama Desert provide one of the most Mars-like environments on Earth, where the team can test and refine these technologies and methods.

ARADS is led by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Partners include NASA centers Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as well as Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Honeybee Robotics in New York, the University of Antofagasta and CampoAlto SpA, both in Chile, and Spain’s Center for Astrobiology.

Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Dominic Hart