Every planetary body NASA explores has its own special conditions that have to be planned for. Whether that means the thin atmosphere of Mars, the corrosive soup on Venus, or the low gravity of Phobos, the technology has to be perfect. It’s Phobos that is the subject of some new development work taking place at Stanford right now, and the leading design is a spiky little probe lovingly referred to as the “hedgehog.”
The challenge with the Martian moon Phobos is that its gravity is extremely low — its diameter is on’y 22.2km. Thus gravity on Phobos is only 1/1000th that of Earth’s. Using a robot that relies on treads or wheels would be highly inefficient in such an environment. The researchers are working on the hedgehog robot in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and MIT.
The hedgehog would be roughly spherical, about half a meter across, and covered in durable spines with ample solar panels underneath. The spikes would dig into the rocky surface as the probe hops, rolls, and bounces around the moon. The hedgehog design is driven by three spinning discs inside the shell of the rover which cause it to roll. Although, rolling in super-low gravity is a little more exciting. It’s estimated that this device would actually be capable of bounding about 10 meters at a time.
The hedgehog could be part of the possible Phobos Surveyor mission that scientists hope to see launched in the next 20 years. Researchers have constructed two prototypes of the hedgehog probe, with a third already in production.
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