Trends in Development of Micro Rovers for Planetary Exploration

Unmanned exploration rovers serve as tools for investigating mineral resources, mining, and carrying out various scientific on celestial bodies beyond Earth, acting on behalf of humans. Recently, not only the United States but also other countries such as Japan, India and China have been attempting to develop unmanned planetary exploration rovers for space development or have successfully operated them on other celestial bodies. This has accelerated the enthusiasm for space exploration and development. However, the development and operation of unmanned rovers for planetary exploration still entail significant costs and high risks, making it difficult for universities or companies to undertake such project independently without the guidance of financial backing from government entities. In this paper, we describe the recent development trends of micro-rovers, known as Cube Rovers, which inherit the concepts and definitions of traditional Cube Sat. We also introduce the potential and expectations of Cube Rovers through the necessity of their development and ongoing planetary exploration cases.