Mountain View, California - A team of researchers from the
SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space
robotics company Honeybee Robotics, has successfully completed a first series
of field tests aimed at investigating how humans will explore and work on
Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and eventually the two moons of Mars, Phobos and
Deimos.
From 13 to 15 April 2013, field experiments were conducted
at the U.S. Army’s National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California, to
evaluate geotechnical methods and systems that will enable humans to be
productive explorers in the low gravity environment of small rocky bodies.
Sub-kilometer sized NEAs, Phobos, and Deimos are among destinations currently
considered by NASA for future human missions into Deep Space.