[sktrdie]

So if it falls on its side, something that has a probably a 50% chance of happening, can it get back up?

I always thought that for exploring another planet, you shouldn't really use something with wheels or wings.

Something different like small "jumping robots" would make a lot more sense in a place where you have literally the ability to do 0-hardware maintenance.

Instead of a single expensive flying robot, why not send a fleet of these little small jumping-robots instead, to more quickly and cheaply explore the area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo

[usrusr]

Tiny works great for agility demos, but I doubt that there would be much agility left once you add any amount of meaningful payload. A battery that lasts longer than a demo video take, sufficiently powered uplink (no convenient wifi or low-power cellular where they are going) and all those sensors for in-situ geological experiments. Because without that, all that jumping around would not get you any data that could not be acquired much easier and with more precision using a simple overhead laser scan. Oh, and much of Mars may not be paved, that little "jump drive" surely needs a reliable surface to push back against.

[azernik]

Where do you get 50% from? It's got landing legs, and will be placed right-side-up to start with by the Mars 2020 rover.

[alexozer]

All it takes is to land on the side on one rock and it's over. I would say the chance is more like 98% over the span of a few years.

[allannienhuis]

Vision navigation systems are pretty effective these days - 'avoid big rocks' seems like a straightforward use case for that. And clearly the landing systems would need to account for some degree of rough terrain. The wheeled drones go through a tremendous amount of testing of the various conditions they would encounter - a flying drone would go through the same engineering rigour before it was approved for the mission.

Also, I believe most of the activity of these devices is planned out well in advance, so you could even add human review to some of that process. It could take a short flight for a few high-rez pictures, land right near (or exactly) where it took off from, send the pics back to earth for review to pick it's next landing spot.

[lukas099]

What about jumping robots makes them maintenance-free?

[jacquesm]

Neat little robot, reminds me of this animal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springtail

I once spotted some 'jumping dust' around a leaky faucet and it turned out that it was 100's of these little creatures. They can jump 100's of times their own height!

[djsumdog]

OMG that little jumping robot is so cute!

[pmoriarty]

I don't know.. I shudder every time I see a robot from Boston Dynamics, because I always imagine it with weaponry running/rolling down the street and killing people, with people trying to fight back but being mostly ineffective.

It's likely we'll see some nightmare uses for such technology in our lifetimes.