Product profile
NASA/JPL CADRE
NASA/JPL CADRE is a future lunar technology demonstration built around three small autonomous rovers and a lander-mounted base station. The team is designe...
Facts
- Company
- NASA
- Product type
- space_robot
- Status
- development
- Primary capability
- cooperative_exploration
- Website
- https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/what-we-do/flight-projects/cooperative-autonomous-distributed-robotic-exploration-cadre/
About NASA/JPL CADRE
NASA/JPL CADRE is a cooperative lunar-rover technology demonstration developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Three solar-powered, four-wheeled rovers communicate with one another and a lander-mounted base station through mesh radios, allowing the team to plan routes and divide work with limited ground intervention. Each carry-on-size rover carries stereo cameras, navigation sensors and multistatic ground-penetrating radar.
CADRE remains a future mission rather than an operational lunar deployment. JPL lists a 2026 launch aboard Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 lander to Reiner Gamma, where the rover team is planned to operate during the daylight portion of one lunar day, about 14 Earth days. Its experiments are intended to test autonomous formation travel, three-dimensional subsurface mapping and distributed measurements that a single rover could not collect alone.
Market context
https://zlsbkmaixmmnjrgpkcyp.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/robotics_assets/products/media-replacement-audit-2026-08-22/nasa-cadre-exact-official-source-crop-1600x900.jpg, cooperative_small_lunar_rover_team, lunar_rover, 1600, 900, e6bdb1dbf033476236ef53bde270f635feee919ce697025cbbe639ab624a30a8, reviewed_exact_product_true_16x9, true, Lunar Rover, robotics_assets, https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/media/images/CADRE1.original.png, https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/what-we-do/flight-projects/cooperative-autonomous-distributed-robotic-exploration-cadre/, official_exact_product_photo, https://zlsbkmaixmmnjrgpkcyp.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/robotics_assets/products/media-replacement-audit-2026-08-22/nasa-cadre-exact-official-source-crop-1600x900.jpg, Same exact official JPL CADRE photograph cropped from 974x535 to a 944x531 source-pixel 16:9 frame, removing the source export border, then resized to 1600x900; no padding, bars, extensions or generated pixels., lunar_rover, products/media-replacement-audit-2026-08-22/nasa-cadre-exact-official-source-crop-1600x900.jpg, 2026-08-22, robotics_research_platform, false, false, source_photo_16x9_crop, space_robotics, 2026-08-22, 2026...
Summary
Type: Lunar rover team
Core: CADRE
Function: Cooperative exploration
Audience: Space agencies
Specifications
- camera_count
- Two stereo cameras per rover cameras
- communications
- Mesh-network radios between rovers and lander base station
- configuration
- Three mobile rovers rovers
- endurance
- Daylight portion of one lunar day (about 14 Earth days) Earth days
- mobility
- Four wheels per rover wheels
- power_source
- Solar panels
- sensors
- Multistatic ground-penetrating radar
Operations
- Environment
- lunar_surface, space_robotics_test, planetary_exploration
- Primary user
- space agencies, robotics researchers, planetary science teams
- Role
- cooperative_exploration, formation_navigation, distributed_sensing
- Interaction model
- autonomous, cooperative_multi_robot
- Mobility class
- lunar_rover_team
- Product detail
- https://zlsbkmaixmmnjrgpkcyp.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/robotics_assets/products/media-replacement-audit-2026-08-22/nasa-cadre-exact-official-source-crop-1600x900.jpg, cooperative_small_lunar_rover_team, lunar_rover, 1600, 900, e6bdb1dbf033476236ef53bde270f635feee919ce697025cbbe639ab624a30a8, reviewed_exact_product_true_16x9, true, Lunar Rover, robotics_assets, https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/media/images/CADRE1.original.png, https://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/what-we-do/flight-projects/co...
Research, Articles and recent verified events
- NASA-supported robotic servicing mission launches for geosynchronous operations — 2026-07-21
- Wisk and NASA complete three-aircraft autonomy supervision trial — 2026-07-15
- NASA awards Ground Control Robotics STRIDE work — 2026-07-08
- Innate runs 25 MARS robots at Y Combinator RoboHacks — 2026-04-11
- NASA selects Orbit Fab for Lunar Gateway fluid-transfer work — 2026-02-16
- HEBI Robotics awarded $850K NASA SBIR Phase II contract for modular space actuators — 2026-01-09
- NASA Perseverance completes first AI-planned Mars drive — 2025-12-10
- HEBI Robotics receives NASA SBIR Phase I grant — 2024-09-18