Lunar Expo at Carnegie Mellon

The Astrobotic team invited the wider Carnegie Mellon community of faculty and students to a Lunar Rover Expo Jan. 13 at the new Bill Gates Computer Sciences Bldg. More than 150 turned out, and more than 60 signed up to learn more about the effort. The Expo started with a 3D show of stereo Apollo images and stereo CAD renderings of the hardware now in development by CMU and Astrobotic.

A key to winning the Google Lunar X Prize bonus for night survival is finding and testing batteries able to come back to life after two weeks of cryogenic cold. Astrobotic and CMU are testing batteries designed for hybrid cars (in green on the table trays), and finding many bounce back with undamaged ability to hold charges on the second lunar day.