PAU students develop the first in Africa prototype of Mars rover

Samuel Oyefiso and Ibukun Afolabi, both space innovators and students of Mechanical Engineering at Pan Atlantic University (PAU), Lagos, have developed a trailblazer that is the first African originating from Nigeria prototype of Mars rover.

In giving insight on why they decided to develop the prototype Mars rover in the face of many challenges befalling the country, such as surging petrol pump prices, insecurity, and hyperinflation ravaging Nigerians, the innovators disclosed that they noticed a gap and lack of activities from Africa in the space industry.

“The space industry in Africa is not doing so much and there’re a lot of innovations currently ongoing in the Western world,” they said.

Oyefiso, one of the innovators on Channels Television’s Moring Brief show said that due to lack of space activities in Africa, especially Nigeria, he never knew about the country’s satellites.

“I didn’t know about what’s going on in the space industry, like how many satellites we have, what are we doing in the space sector and I felt like I wanted to study aerospace engineering but I was limited.

“We thought about a lot of things and we tried to see how we can contribute to the space industry. Looking at Nigeria for example, I think there’s a lot of things we need to do in terms of security, in terms of agriculture, the food security, and weather forecasting, ” he said.

Afolabi, on his part, said the idea behind the Trailblazer Mars Rover innovation is their quest to be unique.

“We tried to do something unique, not copying NASA or doing something that has been done, that’s why we gave it Trailblazer, doing something very unique and fantastic.

“It uses the rocker boogie suspension mechanism mixed with the damping system, so that is like the first brain behind it and also it does rocker boogie. That’s the suspension system integrated in rovers, like the Perseverance, the Curiosity, they have this in their system to like to drive over difficult terrain,” he explained.

Furthermore, Afolabi disclosed that the terrain for the trailblazer Mars Rover is usually not a tarred road; hence the rover is to launch to a substantial altitude.

“Our idea behind it is to be able to launch a substantial altitude and once it comes down, it brings out the Nigerian flag and with a parachute.

“It is to show that we can launch payloads into orbit, satellites from rovers, so this is a unique idea, something different, and also it has test tubes, there’s a scoop right in front of it where you can scoop samples and put it in the test tubes,” he said.

According to Oyefiso, the team made up of 14 people hopes to get rock samples and take pictures of them, because they developed a website where they can analyse systems, rock samples, and soil samples, among others.

The team said that having opened a workshop, they need support and visibility to make the needed impact with the innovation.

“We opened this workshop, we need a lot of money because we want to go to Africa, and we don’t have enough funds to get our tickets.

“So we’re reaching out to different organisations that could help partner with us and make this better and greater for Nigeria,” they said.

In addition, the innovators said that they would need a lot of visibility, and support for their transportation and logistics to South Africa, where they are going to simulate the Trailblazer rover in the Mars environment, in Johannesburg, and Riversand.