day explore space
See the tiny flying robots that could one day explore space
The ion propulsion robot Berkeley showed off in 2017 was small enough to fit on the face of a penny. According to Drew, the team is now working on a larger model that's about .78 Although current versions of the ionocraft must be tethered to a power source, Drew thinks that won't always be the case -- and once they can fly freely, the tiny bots could have a variety of applications, including space exploration. "If we move towards a model of robot swarms as future interstellar explorers (e.g. Starshot), then I think EHD would be an interested propulsion mechanism," he told IEEE Spectrum.