Kevin Sloan, long-time Director of the Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge, will give a presentation about the URC program and plans for next year’s rover design competition (this summer’s URC was postponed due to COVID-19) during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18. As the premier robotics competition for college students from around the world held annually at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, URC challenges student teams to design and build the next generation… READ MORE >
Topic Area: Robotics
The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across all branches of the economy worldwide; leaving some of them profoundly impacted for the foreseeable future. The space industry has not been insulated from the virus either and some Space 4.0 start-ups have declared bankruptcy. The most important events of the space year were at best rescheduled and at worst canceled indefinitely. What brings a little consolation is the fact that the companies whose employees could work from home made that shift quite… READ MORE >
Dr. Vandi Verma, JPL Supervisor of Operable Robotics for the Mars Perseverance and Mars Curiosity missions, will discuss navigating rovers on the Martian surface during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18. Dr. Verma joined JPL’s Mobility and Robotics Systems Section in 2007, with research interest in robotic software that enables autonomy and commanding under uncertainty for coordinated manipulation, mobility, sampling and science. Since 2008, she has been driving Mars rovers (MER, MSL) and operating the… READ MORE >
Dr. Abigail Fraeman, a planetary scientist and deputy project scientist for NASA-JPL’s Curiosity rover mission, will provide an update about the space agency’s Mars rover missions during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18. Her experience with NASA-JPL missions to the solar system are extensive, including having served as co-investigator for the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), principal investigator for NASA Development & Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation, co-investigator for NASA Planetary Data Analysis &… READ MORE >
The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Kris Zacny, Vice President & Director of Exploration Technology at Honeybee Robotics, will speak about planetary drills and sampling systems on Mars and the Moon during the 22nd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 17-20 at the University of Southern California. Honeybee Robotics is a long-time supporter of NASA’s exploration missions. The company’s systems for drilling, coring and physical sampling of Mars, the Moon, and asteroids are designed to support scientific inquiry and… READ MORE >