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A great deal of time and free energy is put into designing the instruments and cameras that get to Mars on rovers, but none of those will practise any good if the vehicle is dead in the sand later a few weeks. After all, information technology's a few million miles to the nearest mechanic. That'due south why NASA engineers are designing a new generation of rover wheels that can cope with the rugged terrain of the red planet. The newly unveiled shape memory tire uses innovative pattern and advanced material for increased survivability in harsh environments.

NASA'due south current Mars rover, the famed Curiosity, was designed with six aluminum wheels, each milled from a solid cake of metallic. Engineers decided on that design to make certain the wheels didn't change shape over time. However, aluminum is inflexible, and the Martian surface is a scrap more pointy than anyone expected. As a result, NASA began to notice punctures and dents in the wheels later on just a year of operation on Mars.

Curiosity has been a real trooper on Mars, logging more distance than any other rover and far exceeding the expectations of NASA. That's thanks non merely to solid engineering merely an affluence of caution as well. Mission operators have care to avoid obstacles that could impairment the wheels further — even a single mistake could render a wheel useless. NASA knew it needed a new generation of rover bicycle, and that'south where the spring tire came in.

NASA initially worked with Goodyear in the mid-2000s to develop a image spring tire. These tires were composed of a flexible mesh with hundreds of coiled steel wires. It gave the tires the ability to support heavy loads with adept traction, only even the strongest steel springs deform. On Mars, rolling over rocks while carrying a heavy loadout of instruments would cause the steel to change shape over time.

The answer was a new material based on a stoichiometric nickel-titanium alloy. Like regular bound tires, there's no air within. It's simply a lattice of coiled metal that flexes as it rolls over obstacles. That means it won't go punctured past precipitous Martian rocks. The bonds in the nickel-titanium alloy can rearrange in response to stress instead of stretching, so the tire snaps dorsum — no deformation.

NASA plans to use shape memory tires on future Mars rovers, possibly even on the upcoming 2020 rover that will take over for Curiosity in the next few years. It'due south fifty-fifty possible we could encounter this blueprint on Earth-based tires one solar day.