Bread crumbs scattered on Mars: Hansel and Gretel, please reply!

With "Martian Breadcrumbs" - an unprecedented way to transmit information, let's see how we can unravel the mysteries of the cave!

This is an artist's rendering of a small autonomous rover inside an ancient lava tube on Mars. Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a new system for such rovers that explore caves or lava tubes on Mars. Just like in the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, they would leave behind "bread crumbs" that serve as communication nodes to help stay in touch with each other and with the parent rover on the surface. Image credit: John Toole/Wikimedia Commons/Mark Tarbell/Wolfgang Fink/University of Arizona.

Future astronauts exploring Mars might take shelter in caves or lava tubes. These places could provide shelter from the harsh conditions on the surface, especially the intense radiation. On March 1, 2023, researchers at the University of Arizona said they had developed a new technology that would allow small, autonomous robotic rovers to begin exploring caves on Mars. The rovers, inspired by the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, would drop high-tech "breadcrumbs" to find their way.

In this case, the "breadcrumbs" would be tiny sensors that the robots would deploy inside the caves to monitor their environment and stay connected to each other. That way, they could find suitable underground living and working areas for future astronauts. The journal Progress in Space Research published peer-reviewed details of the proposed new technology as a pre-proof on February 11, 2023.

Hansel and Gretel inspired exploration of Mars

Current rovers are too large to easily explore caves. However, engineers will design a swarm of smaller robots for this purpose. Also, in those dark underground environments, they need to be able to effectively monitor their surroundings and stay connected to each other. The newly designed system is called a Dynamically Deployed Communication Network (DDCN).

In addition, they need a "mother rover" that stays on the surface. This is what "Hansel and Gretel" inspired. As Wolfgang Fink, editor-in-chief of the University of Arizona, explains: If you remember the book, you know how Hansel and Gretel spread bread crumbs to help them on their way back. In our scenario, the "bread crumbs" are tiny sensors on the rovers that they deploy as they travel through caves or other underground environments.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) took this photo of the crater on the slopes of the Mount Pavonis volcano in 2011. There is a deep hole in the crater floor that scientists call a cave or lava tube. These underground environments will be explored by swarms of small, autonomous rovers in the future. How exciting it would be to explore Martian caves or similar underground environments...what would we find? Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/APOD

Fully automatic Mars rover

These small rovers are both autonomous and interdependent to complete their missions. So if one rover moves away from another but is still within communication range, it leaves behind a breadcrumb, a communication node. Fink calls them "opportunistically deployed breadcrumbs."

He said: One of the new aspects in the operation is what we call opportunistic deployment, the idea of ​​improvising when necessary rather than deploying "breadcrumbs" according to a well-made plan.

The exploration rovers don't even need to communicate with each other. In fact, they can easily do that on their own. The parent rover is more of a passive receiver, collecting data transmitted by the smaller rovers. In this case, it acts as a coordinator to control the dynamics of the rovers."

Fink and his colleagues have been working on something called a hierarchical scalable explorer since 2001. This involves teamwork between robots from different hierarchies. As a current example, the Perseverance rover on Mars controls a small Mars helicopter called Ingenuity. In general, small autonomous rovers work the same way. But in the breadcrumb scenario, this capability is enhanced to allow the rover to operate underground.

An experimental rover used to test hardware and software related to autonomous exploration. Image credit: Wolfgang Fink/University of Arizona.

Sending information to the ground

The rovers are always in contact with the mother vehicle. Therefore, they can send data to the mother vehicle without having to return to the surface themselves. In fact, they will stay underground until their lifespan is exhausted.

"They're designed to be expendable," Fink said. "Rather than wasting resources getting them in and out of caves, you can just keep them going as far as they can and discard them once they've done their job, exhausted their power, or succumbed to the hostile environment."

German astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch added:

The communication network approach described in the new paper has the potential to usher in a new era of planetary and astrobiological discovery, eventually allowing us to explore Mars' lava tube caves and subsurface oceans of icy moons, where extraterrestrial life could potentially linger.

Victor Baker of the University of Arizona also pointed out:

The most amazing discoveries in science occur when advances in technology provide us with the opportunity to receive things or places for the first time, and to communicate these discoveries to a hungry population.

Future astronauts' homes

One of the main goals of the operation is to find underground caves that astronauts could use as shelter. Lava tube caves or other underground environments may also be suitable habitats for astronauts and later humans, but remain to be explored, in part because it is difficult to ensure continuous communication with robotic probes in these environments.

As the paper explains:

Subsurface caves, especially relatively deep lava tube caves, offer possible refuges for life under harsh surface conditions on planets and are therefore of major astrobiological relevance.

This is NASA's first and smallest Mars rover, called Sojourner. It's only 26 inches (65 cm) long! The much larger Mars Pathfinder "lander mother" took this photo in 1997. In the future, similar but more advanced microrovers could explore caves and lava tubes on Mars. Image credit: NASA/ JPL/ NASA Photography Magazine.

Exploring Martian Caves…and Beyond

Other similar but more advanced missions could involve underwater probes. Potential sites include the icy ocean moons of the outer solar system.

For example, a small robotic probe could explore the methane lakes on Saturn's moon Titan or even the subsurface oceans of Europa or Enceladus. As on Mars, the mother probe could either float on the surface of a titanic lake or sit on the ice above a subsurface ocean. In this case, the communication nodes would act as repeaters to periodically boost the signal. This would help prevent signal degradation. Even the nodes themselves could collect data, such as measuring pressure, salinity, temperature, and other chemical and physical parameters. At these locations, however, the nodes would use cables to send data back to the ground lander.

As Fink points out:

Imagine you arrived on Europa and ploughed through miles of ice to reach the subsurface ocean, where you found yourself surrounded by alien life, but you had no way of transmitting data back to the surface. This is a scenario we need to avoid.

Bottom Line: Researchers have developed a "breadcrumb" system that small, autonomous robotic rovers can use to explore Martian caves and lava tubes.

BY:Paul Scott Anderson

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