Is cellular better than modular?

One application that highlights the advantages of self-reconfigurable systems is long-term space missions. These require long-term self-sustaining robotic ecology that can handle unforeseen situations and may require self repair. Self-reconfigurable systems have the ability to handle tasks that are not known a priori especially compared to fixed configuration systems. In addition, space missions are highly volume and mass constrained. Sending a robot system that can reconfigure to achieve many tasks is better than sending many robots that each can do one task.