Nomad rover

From June 15 to July 31 of 1997 on a mission, Carnegie Mellon University deployed the robotic rover Nomad to traverse the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile.

[1][2] Nomad traveled an unprecedented 215 km in 45 days,[3] remotely controlled and driven from both the Kamin Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA, and the Intelligent Mechanisms Group laboratory at Ames Research Center (ARC).

This NASA-funded research program tested technologies critical to planetary exploration and enabled scientists to perform remote geological experiments.

Nomad was operated entirely under remote control from the U.S., including telepresence and autonomous guidance with simulated 4- to 15-minute time delays such as those that would be encountered on missions to Mars.

For this terrestrial experiment, power was supplied by a gasoline generator that enabled the robot to travel at speeds up to about one mile per hour.