MMX Rover Locomotion Subsystem - Development and Testing towards the Flight Model

Abstract

Wheeled rovers have been successfully used as mobile landers on Mars and Moon and more such missions are in the planning. For the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), such a wheeled rover will be used on the Marsian Moon Phobos. This is the first rover that will be used under such low gravity, called milli-g, which imposes many challenges to the design of the locomotion subsystem (LSS). The LSS is used for unfolding, standing up, driving, aligning and lowering the rover on Phobos. It is a entirely new developed highly-integrated mechatronic system that is specifically designed for Phobos. Since the Phase A concept of the LSS, which was presented two years ago [1], a lot of testing, optimization and design improvements have been done. Following the tight mission schedule, the LSS qualification and flight models (QM and FM) assembly has started in Summer 2021. In this work, the final FM design is presented together with selected test and optimization results that led to the final state. More specifically, advances in the mechanics, electronics, thermal, sensor, firmware and software design are presented. The LSS QM and FM will undergo a comprehensive qualification and acceptance testing campaign, respectively, in the first half of 2022 before the FM will be integrated into the rover.