NOMAD in Antarctica

2000/03/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronautika

Nomad, a NASA robot looking for only meteorites, starts working in Antarctica. It has cameras that help you to walk and calculate distances, a laser to detect obstacles in the track and a high resolution camera to see well the rocks of interest.

In addition, it has a mass spectrometer to determine whether the rock found is meteorite or not. Thanks to all these resources, Nomad is able to walk and work alone without the need for remote control. I had previously searched for meteorites in the Chilean desert of Atacama, but then moved with remote control. NASA's intention for the future is to send robots like Nomad to study the soil of other planets in the Solar System.