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 is scheduled as a future lunar technology-demonstration mission. 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.