WHITE SANDS NATIONAL PARK – A national park’s otherworldly landscape is moonlighting as another planet. Scientists are using White Sands National Park in New Mexico as a stand-in for Mars to get a dog-like robot ready for a trip to the Red Planet.
The field crew for the LASSIE Project (Legged Autonomous Surface Science in Analog Environments) is gathering data from the feet of the quadruped robots, which can measure mechanical responses to foot-surface interactions, with the ultimate goal of putting a “quadruped robot” on Mars to conduct science.
“Our group is very committed to putting quadrupeds on the Moon and on Mars,” said Cristina Wilson, a robotics researcher in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. “It’s the next frontier and takes advantage of the unique capabilities of legged robots.”
This is the team’s second trip to the park; the first trip was in 2023. They’ve also gone to Mount Hood in Oregon for research.
This year, the team faced challenging conditions including temperatures in the triple-digits, which meant very early mornings.
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