Terramechanics research aims to keep Mars rovers rolling
In May 2009, the Mars rover Spirit cracked through a crusty layer of Martian topsoil, sinking into softer underlying sand. The unexpected sand trap permanently mired the vehicle, despite months of remote maneuvering by NASA engineers to attempt to free the rover. The mission mishap may have been prevented, says MIT’s Karl Iagnemma, by a better understanding of terramechanics — the interaction between vehicles and deformable terrain. Iagnemma says scientists have a pretty good understanding of how soils interact with vehicles that weigh more than 2,000 pounds. But for smaller, lighter vehicles like the Mars rovers, the situation is murkier.“There’s a lot of knowledge in civil engineering about how soils will react when subjected to heavy loads,” says Iagnemma, who is a principal research scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “When you take lightweight vehicles and granular soils of varying composition, it’s a very complex modeling process.”Now Iagnemma and...