What innovative rovers can be developed to advance Mars surface exploration? This is what a recent study presented at the Joint Meeting of the Europlanet Science Congress and the Division for Planetary Sciences (EPSC-DPS) 2025 hopes to address as a team of researchers from the Netherlands developed a novel rover concept for exploring the surface of Mars. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop the next generation of cheaper and reliable Mars rovers, which comes as NASA currently has two multi-billion-dollar rovers exploring the Red Planet.
For the study, the researchers introduced how wind-driven spherical rovers called “tumbleweeds” could effectively and efficiently explore the surface of Mars, including the planet’s magnetic field, surface hazards, life-sustaining elements (CHNOPS), and surface radiation. To test their design, the team deployed prototypes ranging in size from 30-50 centimeters (11.8-19.7 inches) of their rovers in wind tunnels to examine the wind speeds needed to push their rovers across the Martian surface and under Martian conditions. In the end, the researchers found that wind speeds of 9-10 meters per second (29.5-32.8 feet per second) were sufficient to cause the rovers to tumble, hence their name.
“Experiments with the prototypes in the Aarhus Wind Tunnel have provided big insights into how Tumbleweed rovers would operate on Mars,” said Mário João Carvalho de Pinto Balsemão, who is the Team Tumbleweed’s Mission Scientist and a co-author on the study. “The results are conservative, as the weights of the scaled prototypes used in the experiments are exaggerated compared to the real thing, so the threshold wind speeds for setting the rovers rolling could be even less.”
Image of the “tumbleweed” prototype during recent field tests. (Credit: Team Tumbleweed/Sas Schilten)
As noted, this study comes as NASA presently has two multi-billion-dollar rovers exploring the surface of Mars, but studies like this can demonstrate that potentially the same level of science could be achieved with cheaper and more mobile rovers.
How will these “tumbleweed” rovers help advance Mars surface exploration in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: EPSC-DPS2025, EurekAlert!, Wikipedia
