Photo Gallery: NASA develops tire for Mars missions
David Manley
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A little over a year after the Mars Curiosity Rover landed on Mars, engineers began to notice significant wheel damage in 2013 due to the unexpectedly harsh terrain
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(NASA images, Tire Business Illustration by David Manley)
CLEVELAND While NASA s newest tire is the result of years of research and development, it was a chance meeting between old colleagues that moved it from a unique R&D project to a key piece of an upcoming mission to Mars.
The team at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland engineered a tire the Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) Spring Tire that can handle the heavy load of a lunar rover while traversing rough, rocky Martian terrain and enduring extreme temperatures.
From Tire Business: While NASA's newest tire is the result of years of research and development, it was a chance meeting between old colleagues that moved it from a unique R&D project to a key piece of an upcoming mission to Mars.
CLEVELAND While NASA's newest tire is the result of years of research and development, it was a chance meeting between old colleagues that moved it from a unique R&D project to a key piece of an upcoming mission to Mars.
The team at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland engineered a tire…
Tire Business Illustration by David Manley / NASA images
In 2026, a rover will be launched to Mars to collect samples left across the Martian landscape by Perseverance Rover, which landed on Mars in February. The samples will be dropped at a launch station, sent into space and picked up by an orbiter to return to Earth. Previous damage to the rigid rover wheels led NASA to adopt a Shape Memory Alloy Spring Tire built for the most extreme terrain and temperatures.
CLEVELAND While NASA s newest tire is the result of years of research and development, it was a chance meeting between old colleagues that moved it from a unique R&D project to a key piece of an upcoming mission to Mars.