NASA scientists have devised a way to access those areas that are inaccessible to rovers. They are developing drones that can reach to the regions on Mars, asteroids and Moon and gather samples.

The drones will be similar to quad-copters, but their designing will be done with an aim that they have to travel in their thin atmosphere of Mars and airless voids of asteroids and the moon. The machines are being made under the name Extreme Access Flyers.

Their designers have been creating vehicles that can travel into shaded regions of a crater. These vehicles will be compact enough that a lander will be able to carry several of them to the surface at once. It means that even if one fails, the mission will not end.

Rob Mueller, senior technologist for advanced projects at Swamp Works at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said that before they could use resources on the other planets, it is important to find those resources. Mostly, these resources are present in areas that are hard to access and are permanently shadowed.

Rob affirmed that some of these hard-to-access areas have crater walls angled 30 degrees or more. These are far too sharp for a traditional rover to navigate and climb. For navigation purposes, the team has been programming the drones to identify terrain and landmarks and to guide itself to areas controllers on earth.

Mike DuPuis, co-investigator of the Extreme Access Flyer project, said that drones will have sufficient propellant to fly for many minutes on Mars or on the moon and hours on an asteroid.