Stanford team developing spiky robot "hedgehogs" to explore Phobos

"Robot hedgehogs on the moons of Mars may sound like the title
of a B-grade sci-fi movie, but that is what Stanford University is
working on. Marco Pavone, an assistant professor in the
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and his team are
developing spherical robots called “hedgehogs” that are about half
a meter (1.6 ft) wide and covered in spikes to better cope with
rolling and hopping across the surface of the Martian moon Phobos
with its very low gravity."

See:

http://www.gizmag.com/robot-hedgehogs/25597/

Deimos is even more interesting.
100 yd dash to orbit anyone?

See:

http://groups.google.com/d/topic/sci...ZQQ/discussion

Dave