Mini Transforming Rover Explores Moon for 100 Minutes

A palm-sized, transforming robot successfully explored the lunar surface autonomously for 100 minutes in early 2024, providing critical data on its stricken mothership, according to a new scientific study detailing the mission's results. The findings, published this month in the journal Science Robotics, highlight the potential for such miniature rovers to act as agile scouts in future planetary exploration.

The spherical rover, officially named Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV2) and also called SORAQ, was a payload aboard the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft. SLIM achieved a soft landing on the moon on January 19, 2024, making Japan the fifth nation to reach the lunar surface. The landing site was near the Shioli crater within the larger Cyrillus crater on the moon's near side.

Shortly after touchdown, SLIM deployed two small robots: a hopping rover called LEV1 and the transforming LEV2. Weighing just 250 grams and measuring 80 millimeters (about 3 inches) in diameter, LEV2 was a joint development by JAXA, Sony, Doshisha University, and the toy company TakaraTOMY. Engineers incorporated transformation technology...