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Wheeled planetary rovers such as the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) have provided unprecedented, detailed images of the Mars surface. However, these rovers are large and are of high-cost as they need to…

Exploring planetary bodies with lower gravity, such as the moon and Mars, allows legged robots to utilize jumping as an efficient form of locomotion thus giving them a valuable advantage over traditional rovers for exploration. Motivated by…

The visual detection and tracking of surface terrain is required for spacecraft to safely land on or navigate within close proximity to celestial objects. Current approaches rely on template matching with pre-gathered patch-based features,…

Depth estimation plays a great potential role in obstacle avoidance and navigation for further Mars exploration missions. Compared to traditional stereo matching, learning-based stereo depth estimation provides a data-driven approach to…

CubeSats have become a meaningful option for deep-space exploration, but their autonomy must be increased to maximize the science return while limiting the complexity in operations. We present here a solution for an autonomous orbit…

For real-world applications, autonomous mobile robotic platforms must be capable of navigating safely in a multitude of different and dynamic environments with accurate and robust localization being a key prerequisite. To support further…

We used attitude data from the Mars Ingenuity helicopter with a simple steady-state model to estimate windspeeds and directions at altitudes of 3 meters up to 24 meters, the first time winds at such altitudes have been probed on Mars. We…

As natural access points to the subsurface, lava tubes and other caves have become premier targets of planetary missions for astrobiological analyses. Few existing robotic paradigms, however, are able to explore such challenging…

The field of autonomous navigation for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is in continuous growth and increasing levels of autonomy have been reached in the last few years. However, the task becomes more challenging when the focus is on the…

Two years after InSight's arrival at Mars, the ExoMars 2020 mission will land on the opposite side of the red planet. Similarly to InSight, which carries the RISE (Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment) radio-science experiment, the…

In the distant future, humans will surely fly to Mars. Even today, probes and vehicles are carrying out measurements on the surface of Mars. However, most landings on Mars cannot be carried out with parachutes alone. Instead, landing…

In this paper we show that Sun-viewing images obtained by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Navigation Cameras (Navcam) can be used for retrieving the dust optical depth and constrain the aerosol physical properties at Gale Crater by…

In this document, we summarize the main capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for performing observations of Mars. The distinctive vantage point of JWST at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2) will allow sampling the full…

Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) comprise multiple drone units with reconfigurable connected formations, providing high adaptability to diverse mission scenarios, fault conditions, and payload capacities. However, existing control…

The present article proposes an approach to analyze the photometric properties of the surface materials from multi-angle observations acquired by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on-board the Mars…

In contrast to manned missions, the application of autonomous robots for space exploration missions decreases the safety concerns of the exploration missions while extending the exploration distance since returning transportation is not…

Underwater marine inspections for ship hull or marine debris, etc. are one of the vital measures carried out to ensure the safety of marine structures and underwater species. This work details the design, development and qualification of a…

We consider the problem of vision-based 6-DoF object pose estimation in the context of the notional Mars Sample Return campaign, in which a robotic arm would need to localize multiple objects of interest for low-clearance pickup and…

Any rotorcraft on Mars will fly in a low pressure and dusty environment. It is well known that helicopters on Earth become highly-charged due, in part, to triboelectric effects when flying in sandy conditions. We consider the possibility…

We present a concept for using a polarization sensitive multispectral lidar to map the seasonal distribution and exchange of volatiles among the reservoirs of the Martian surface and atmosphere. The LIDAR instrument will be a…