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AUTONOMOUS POLAR ROVER

LIGHTWEIGHT CHASSIS · THERMAL ENCLOSURE · FIELD‑TESTED

Stanford Student Space Initiative Mars Team flagship: an autonomous polar rover with a lightweight chassis and thermal enclosure, taken from CAD and FEA through fabrication and Antarctic‑analog field testing at Tahoe and Lassen. Led structures design as Mars Team Lead managing ~40 engineers across the program.

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PROBLEM / APPROACH / OUTCOME

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PROBLEM. Build a rover that can survive and operate autonomously in polar conditions: low ambient temperatures, mixed terrain, and the mass budget of a student team that has to lift and ship its own hardware to a field site. The chassis has to take impact and torsion loads while staying as light as possible, and the electronics bay has to stay alive in the cold.

APPROACH. Owned the structures design from CAD and FEA through fabrication. Iterated the chassis on stiffness‑to‑mass with FEA on the primary load paths; designed a thermal enclosure to keep the avionics within their operating window. Coordinated with the avionics, controls, and software teams under the Mars Team Lead role, with a ~$35K annual budget covering the rover and two adjacent programs.

OUTCOME. Field‑tested in Antarctic‑analog conditions at Lake Tahoe and Lassen Volcanic National Park. Delivered a chassis and thermal enclosure that survived deployment and gave the autonomy stack a stable platform to run on. Next campaigns: Alaska plateau and tundra, working toward deployment in Antarctica.

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A
DETAIL B

SPECIFICATIONS

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ROLE
Mars Team Lead, Stanford Student Space Initiative
DURATION
Mar 2025 – Mar 2026 (1 year)
TEAM
~40 engineers across rover, payload, and lander programs
BUDGET
~$35K annual (Mars Team portfolio)
SCOPE
Lightweight chassis + thermal enclosure for autonomy stack
FIELD TEST
Tahoe & Lassen (complete); Alaska plateau and tundra next; Antarctica planned
METHODS
CAD, FEA, fabrication; thermal‑loaded structural iteration
TOOLS
Autodesk Fusion 360, FEA, composites & metal fabrication
SISTER PROGRAMS
Microgravity crystallization payload (Sheet 2); benthic lander concepts
DETAIL C

REFERENCES

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TEAM
ssi.stanford.edu
FIELD SITES
Lake Tahoe & Lassen Volcanic National Park, CA (Antarctic analog); Alaska and Antarctica ahead
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SHEET 1 / INDEX
REV DATE DESCRIPTION BY
–2026-05-08INITIAL RELEASECC
DRAWN BY COLIN HENRY CROWN
DATE 2026-05-08
TITLE AUTONOMOUS POLAR ROVER · SHEET 6
SCALE 1 : 1
UNITS MM
SIZE B
DWG NO. PRT-006
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