Hopping Martian lander appears feasible

BBC : A research group from Leicester University in the UK and the Astrium space company has developed a plan for a planetary exploration robot that travels by hopping instead of using wheels. The hop is powered by a radioisotope thermal rocket engine, which extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, compresses and liquifies it, and then heats it using radiation. The heat would cause the carbon dioxide to explosively vaporize out an exhaust nozzle to provide thrust. The researchers calculated that a 1000 kg craft could travel up to 900 m per jump; that would give a much wider area of exploration than even the farthest-traveled wheeled rovers. They’ve also developed a reusable magnetic damping system to cushion the landing, in place of the one-use legs on previous landers. Several other problems would need to be addressed before a hopping lander could be built, such as increasing the rate at which CO ₂ could be extracted and liquified. And there are many other designs for landers, but the goal of the European Space Agency-funded study was to determine whether this design was feasible. The researchers are satisfied that it is.