Exploring New Space Environments with Levitating Robots

When we think of robots in space exploration, the image that often comes to mind is a car-like vehicle such as NASA’s Curiosity rover. While wheeled robots such as these are extremely valuable to science, they struggle to operate in low-gravity environments. In this MIT Horizon webinar, researcher Oliver Jia-Richards from MIT’s Space Propulsion Laboratory will join us to discuss his team’s experimental hovering robots that utilize a surface’s electrical charges to levitate and explore airless environments, allowing for easier exploration of smaller bodies such as moons and asteroids. After the talk, Oliver will take questions from the audience.