India Makes One Of The Best Mars Rovers In The World

Before we can bring any human to live on Mars, we first need to bring rovers there to search for water, building space, minerals, and more. And we are so proud to say that India makes one of the best Mars rovers out there.

MRM team, short for Mars Rover Manipal, is made up of students attending Manipal Institute of Technology. Recently, the team took part in ‘University Rover Challenge’ – a rover design contest in Utah, US. In the end, the team got one of the highest prizes in the competition.

Partnering with Echjay Industries and Mouser Electronics, MRM became the winner among other Asian challengers participating in the contest. In addition, from 84 participants from around the world, this team got itself the 8^th place, and they were also given the Barainca award for being the best science team in the contest.

Besides MRM, there were four other teams in the competition, namely SRM, VIT Vellore, IIT Madras, and IIT Bombay. However, MRM was the only one to have made it to the final stage. Interestingly, this is the fourth consecutive year that the team’s remained in the top 36 international participants.

Building a Mars Rover

In the University Rover Challenge, participants have to build Mars rovers with certain specifications required by the competition. Importantly, the rovers must be able to travel along a simulated terrain on Mars, and complete basic tasks required in the experimentation on Mars. Particularly, there are four design goals, including Equipment Servicing mission, Delivery mission, Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Mission, Autonomous Traversal mission, and Science mission.

Said Safal Ajmera, co-leader of MRM, along with V Sai Shyam: