Tumbleweed Rover Tests Mark Breakthrough for Affordable Mars Exploration
September 25, 2025 — Europlanet | Edited by Gaby Clark, Reviewed by Robert Egan
A pioneering approach to Mars exploration could soon revolutionize how scientists study the Red Planet’s surface and atmosphere. Recent tests of the "Tumbleweed" rover—a lightweight, wind-driven spherical robot—have demonstrated promising results, suggesting this technology could enable low-cost, large-scale exploration of Mars.
Wind-Powered Mobility: A New Paradigm
Unlike traditional Mars rovers that rely on self-powered locomotion, Tumbleweed rovers harness the power of Martian winds to move. Designed as 5-meter-diameter spherical vehicles, these rovers roll and tumble across the landscape, propelled by gusts much like tumbleweeds blown across a field on Earth. This innovative mobility system allows the deployment of swarms of rovers that could cover vast terrains autonomously, collecting environmental and atmospheric data over diverse locations simultaneously.
At a recent joint meeting of the Europlanet Science Congress and the Division for Planetary Sciences (EPSC-DPS 2025) in Helsinki, Team Tumbleweed presented their latest experimental findings, underscoring the feasibility of this concept.
Successful Wind Tunnel and Field Trials
The team conducted rigorous wind tunnel testing in July 2025 at Aarhus University’s Planetary Environment Facility, using scaled rover prototypes measuring 30 to 50 centimeters in diameter. These tests replicated Mars-like atmospheric conditions, with low pressure (approximately 17 millibars) and varied ground surfaces, including sand, pebbles, and boulders.
Results showed that wind speeds as low as 9–10 meters per second were sufficient to set the rovers in motion across a range of simulated Martian terrains. The rovers’ movements closely matched fluid dynamics models developed by the team, confirming simulation accuracy. Impressively, the prototypes could climb slopes in the chamber equivalent to about 30 degrees on Mars, indicating capability to traverse relatively steep terrain.
In April 2025, a larger 2.7-meter prototype called the Tumbleweed Science Testbed was trialed in a disused quarry in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Equipped with a suite of commercial sensors—including cameras, magnetometers, inertial measurement units, and GPS—the rover successfully gathered environmental data while tumbling over natural terrain. This fieldwork confirmed that the rover platform could perform real-time scientific measurements during movement.
Implications for Mars Missions
Mars experiences varying wind speeds that are not yet fully characterized. However, data from NASA’s InSight mission and the Ingenuity helicopter have revealed frequent episodes of winds exceeding 10 meters per second near the surface, particularly during summer in Mars’s northern hemisphere.
“These wind conditions are ideal for the Tumbleweed rovers,” explained Mário João Carvalho de Pinta Balsemão, Team Tumbleweed’s Mission Scientist. “Our models predict that an average Tumbleweed rover could cover around 422 kilometers over 100 Martian sols, with top ranges potentially reaching 2,800 kilometers under favorable conditions.”
The unique mobility and distributed deployment of the rovers offer a transformative advantage. After traversing the Martian surface, each spherical rover could collapse into a stationary measurement station, providing long-term environmental data from scattered points across the planet.
The Team and Next Steps
Team Tumbleweed is an international group of early-career scientists headquartered in Vienna, Austria, and Delft, Netherlands, combining expertise from over 20 countries. Their ongoing development efforts include enhancing onboard scientific instruments with radiation detectors, soil probes, and dust sensors, improving rover dynamics simulations, and advancing the technology readiness levels.
In November 2025, the team plans a further field campaign in the Atacama Desert, Chile—a Mars-analog environment—where at least two Science Testbed rovers will be deployed. These tests will integrate instruments from partner researchers and trial swarm coordination strategies essential for future mission operations.
A Vision for Low-Cost, High-Impact Exploration
The Tumbleweed rover concept holds the potential to drastically reduce the cost and complexity of planetary exploration missions. By using natural wind energy for locomotion and enabling widespread distributed sensing, these rovers could provide unprecedented insights into Martian atmospheric dynamics, surface properties, and geological processes from many vantage points simultaneously.
James Kingsnorth, Head of Science at Team Tumbleweed, summarized the milestone: “Our experimental validations mark a turning point. We now have real-world data confirming that Tumbleweed rovers could operate effectively on Mars and deliver valuable scientific results.”
Learn more:
James Kingsnorth et al., “Preliminary Feasibility Assessment of the Tumbleweed Rover Platform and Mission Using the AU Planetary Environment Facility,” EPSC Abstracts (2025). DOI: 10.5194/epsc-dps2025-1775
For ongoing updates on space exploration and science breakthroughs, subscribe to our newsletter.
Photos: Team Tumbleweed/Sas Schilten; Team Tumbleweed/Aarhus University
