A MISSION CONCEPT FOR LAVA TUBE EXPLORATION ON MARS AND MOON –THE DLR SCOUT ROVER

Abstract

The goal of the mission is to enter a martian or lunar skylight in order to check for cave continuations and placement of a sensor suite. A camera will also be used in order to deliver visible light images for context. With a combination of the navigation suite and communication modules, the cave passages will also be surveyed in order to produce a map, as is tradition in terrestrial speleology.From a technical point of view, themission is planned to be as simple as possible. Thus,it is planned to discard rope access systems and tofocus on sufficient robustness of the rover system. This allows for dropping into smaller skylights (10-20m depth) or larger ones, partially filled with regolith.Figure 1illustrates an overview of the mission sequencewhich is designed to be“one way”, i.e. the rover is going into the cave but never out again. Itallows to take a higher risk of going beyond obstaclesthat are not reversible and to omit the need for a recharging system for the rover once it is in the cave. Thus,the mission inside the cave will last as long as the battery runtime. As the scout rover is a small, lightweight system, several such roversmay be part of one mission to increase the exploration impact and science return.In order to access an entrance of a lava tube there are several options to be considered: having a bigger main rover that is delivering one or more Scoutsfrom the landing moduleto the entrance, or havingthe Scout equipped with solar panels to make the approach on its own. The first option isfavorable as system complexity of the Scout is reduced, while the second option ispreferred for rough terrain during the approach.