Technologies

Robots Could Help Humans Find Resources on the Moon and Mars

Scientists tested a semi-autonomous robot with legs and an arm to see how well it could travel on its own.

NASA rovers have revealed fascinating details and close-up images of Mars and the moon, but exploring other planets is slow. Most rovers are remotely controlled from Earth, and their careful, energy-efficient design limits how much ground they can cover.

Now, new research from the University of Basel, ETH Zurich, and the European Space Agency, published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Space Technologies, examines how robots that can “think” for themselves might help us search a planet’s surface much faster.

Because rovers are built and guided in specific ways, exploration is often limited, making it hard to collect data across a large area of the planet. It also takes a while to transmit data across the vast distance between Earth and other celestial bodies.

“Rovers are designed for energy efficiency and safety, and to move slowly across hazardous terrain,” the researchers said in a statement. “Here, we tested a different approach.”

They experimented with a “semi-autonomous robotic explorer” that can investigate multiple targets and collect data without being told where to go.

“The results showed that semi-autonomous robots equipped with compact instruments could significantly speed up resource prospecting and the search for ‘biosignatures’ (i.e., evidence of life) on planetary surfaces,” the researchers wrote.

So instead of humans controlling the robots via remote control over long distances, the researchers found that a robot outfitted with the right tools can navigate the surface and collect data at separate locations all by itself.

Testing autonomy

The researchers used a quadrupedal robot with a robotic arm. The robot, which they programmed to work without humans, carried a special camera and a spectrometer, designed to identify different materials.

“(The robot’s) autonomy is limited to the execution of predefined commands, including locomotion, waypoint navigation, instrument deployment and data return,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

To test the robot, the team used the Marslabor facility at the University of Basel in Switzerland. This facility simulates planetary surface conditions with a rocky environment and special lightning.

The robot moved through the facility to selected targets, like specific rock types hidden in the landscape. Then it used its robotic arm to deploy the science instruments and returned images and data for analysis.

The researchers compared this new strategy with a more traditional approach: scientists guiding the robot to explore one target at a time.

The researchers found that multi-target missions took the semi-autonomous robot 12 to 23 minutes, while human-guided missions took 41 minutes to conduct similar exploration and analysis.

Moon maneuvers

While most rovers use wheels to get around, using a robot with legs could be helpful, the researchers wrote, as some lunar resources are found in hard-to-reach terrain with steep crater walls, which could be a challenge for wheeled robots.

NASA has also been working on autonomous rovers that can explore and excavate on the Moon with minimal human direction. And while the current Artemis II mission won’t use a lunar rover, these robots could help pave the way for a sustained human presence on the moon.

In December, NASA used AI to successfully plot a course for the Mars rover Perseverance. The team used Anthropic’s Claude AI models for two demonstrations. The rover navigated obstacles on the Martian surface and drove approximately 1,500 feet without issue.

Technologies

Trump strikes deal with Putin to supply Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets

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Technologies

Major League Baseball proposes shortening its regular season as it pushes for a salary cap

Major League Baseball proposed a return to a shorter 154-game regular season schedule as it attempts to convince players to approve a salary cap.

Major League Baseball proposed shortening its regular season to 154 games from 162 as it attempts to convince players to approve a salary cap in the league’s next collective bargaining agreement. The new shortened schedule would begin in 2029.

MLB’s CBA expires Dec. 1, after the conclusion of this season’s World Series. The most contentious issue is the introduction of a salary cap on players. MLB is the only major American sports league without a cap. The league has failed to convince the players’ union to adopt one in several previous CBA negotiations.

A 154-game season was used between 1904 and 1960, except for 1918 and 1919 when the schedule was abbreviated because of World War I. For the past 66 years, 162 regular season games has been the standard, though some seasons have been shortened.

Lopping off eight games “is good for player health, while also creating a new national broadcast window to showcase our most exciting teams and players,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “A shorter regular season unlocks making October even better for our fans — with fewer weekday afternoon games, a longer Division Series, and more opportunities to see the game’s best pitchers on the biggest stage.”

As part of the proposal, MLB wants to cement Monday as an exclusive broadcast window for one or two games to “increase national exposure for the sport.” The league could conceivably sell a package of Monday-only games to a streaming service looking to increase subscriber and advertising revenue. Every team not playing in the national game or games would have an off day.

Teams that play Monday would be off on Thursday, MLB said.

In addition to lowering the number of regular season games, MLB would extend the divisional round of the playoffs to seven games from five and would allow the higher-seeded teams in both the wild card round and in the divisional round to choose their lower-seeded opponent.

The Major League Baseball Players Association responded to the MLB’s proposed changes by claiming the league “once again made clear that all of its proposals are contingent on players’ agreement to a salary cap, a system that guts player rights and compensation, as well as its other anti-player proposals.”

An MLB spokesperson confirmed that Thursday’s proposed changes are contingent on adopting a cap – and a salary floor, which would force teams to spend a certain amount on players. Still, the MLBPA said it would review the proposed changes. “Players will weigh in on these proposals and we will respond at the bargaining table,” MLBPA said in a statement.

Technologies

Hurricane Isaias disrupts U.S. oil production in Gulf of Mexico, threatens refineries

The hurricane could tighten a fuel market that is already facing big disruptions from the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Hurricane Isaias is disrupting U.S. crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and could limit about 2% of the country’s refining capacity, at a time when fuel markets are already tight around the world.

Isaias is churning toward Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle as a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, and is expected to make landfall Friday night or early Saturday.

As of Thursday, oil companies had shut in about 1.3 million barrels per day, or roughly 63% of total U.S. production in the Gulf, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

The hurricane appeared to be veering away from the dense refining region in southern Louisiana near New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

But the storm could affect Chevron

“Of course, losing any refinery capacity when diesel supplies are at their lowest level for this time of year since the EIA began reporting in 1982 is not a good thing,” Lipow wrote in a Friday note, referring to the Energy Information Administration.

Chevron’s refinery at Pascagoula remains operational, spokesperson Ross Allen said Thursday. Vertex officials weren’t immediately available for comment about its Saraland refinery.

″The biggest risk to these two refineries are a loss of electricity or flooding damage,” Lipow wrote in a note Friday. If the refineries do shut down, it would take one to two weeks to restart them if they did not sustain damage, he said.

Refineries on the Gulf Coast are running at 95% of their capacity, so there is no slack in the system to make up for lost production, Lipow said.

Diesel prices have soared as the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East knock out refining capacity. Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries forced Moscow to ban diesel exports. Iran and its Houthi allies have also attacked refineries in the Middle East.

U.S. refiners have stepped in to take advantage of wide profit margins to export diesel around the world, particularly to Europe.

In the past, fuel prices rose while crude prices fell during outages at Gulf refineries, said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners. That’s a result of those refineries not demanding crude and not producing fuel for consumers, Book told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.

Lipow warned that tanker traffic will also be disrupted.

“Tankers will be delayed delivering crude oil to the refineries while other tankers are delayed loading gasoline, jet fuel and diesel out of the refineries,” the analyst said. “Florida will experience delays in receiving gasoline, jet fuel and diesel.”