rover

Three different Mars rover designs: Sojourner, MER and Curiosity Curiosity's wheels on Mars, 2017 Comparison of distances driven by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of the Moon and Mars A rover (or sometimes planetary rover) is a planetary surface exploration machine designed to move over the rough surface of a planet or other planetary-mass celestial bodies. Some rovers have been designed as land vehicles to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots.

Rovers typically land on a planet other than Earth or a moon via a lander-style spacecraft, tasked to move around and collect information about the terrain, and to take crust samples such as dust, soil, rocks and even liquids. They are essential astrogeology tools for space exploration.