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NASA Picks Rocket Lab to Power Mobile Space Robots With Solar Panels

NASA Picks Rocket Lab to Power Mobile Space Robots With Solar Panels - top government contractors - best government contracting event

Rocket Lab has secured a contract with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to provide solar panels that will power small, autonomous robots programmed to work as a team to explore and collect data on lunar and planetary surfaces.

For the effort, the contractor said Friday it will use the inverted metamorphic multi-junction solar cells that its recently acquired subsidiary SolAero Technologies developed for the solar panels.

IMM solar cells have 40 percent less mass than standard space-grade solar cells. Rocket Lab used the same batteries to launch General Atomics‘ GAzelle spacecraft earlier this month.

The shoe-sized rovers are part of JPL’s Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Explorers project, which is slated for a technology demonstration within the next five years through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

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Written by Kacey Roberts

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