HSM ARIES / THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE ROVER
Rahul Khandait
Drone Lead (Astroflight) & Software Engineer
- Software & Autonomy
- Astroflight (AQUILA UAV)
On the team
Rahul leads AQUILA, the aerial side of the HSM Aries mission. His Astroflight responsibilities bring together flight control, visual mapping and the links between drone and rover operations. He also contributes to the software department, connecting aerial reconnaissance with the wider autonomous-systems effort.
His involvement extends to the team’s technical documentation: Rahul is a coauthor of the LEAP-One design preprint. Working across aircraft development and rover software gives his role a particular emphasis on how separate robotic platforms contribute to one mission.
Selected research & projects
LEAP-One: A Mars Rover Designed for Remote Mars Analogue Scientific Exploration and Sampling Missions — 2026 preprint; rover design, scientific sampling and remote operation.