Fabrication starts on battery pack mold

The Astrobotic rover will carry a battery pack (273 WHr) to ensure power during the high-activity landing and also for the brief periods during roving when the solar panels won’t be fully oriented toward the Sun. The team is fabricating a battery pack that straps the lithium ion cells to a main I-beam, which connects to the radiator to disperse heat. This image shows the top piece of an aluminum mold for the battery pack over which a carbon-fiber structure will be built up. This image shows the bottom piece of an aluminum mold for the battery pack over which a carbon-fiber structure will... [Read more]

Astrobotic begins tests of tiny IMU

The Astrobotic team has initiated testing of an experimental inertial measurement unit (IMU) loaned from Intel Labs. (IMUs measure a spacecraft’s velocity, orientation and gravitational forces.) The tiny device provides six degree of freedom orientation data, utilizing a bluetooth wireless connection to a host computer. It contains three accelerometers, three gyroscopes, three magnetometers, and a microprocessor. The 9.8 gram IMU runs for six hours on a single charge. Video of IMU test screen  Read More →

Night survival test succeeds with Intel chip

For the Astrobotic rover to survive hibernation during the lunar night’s cryogenic cold, the team must find commercial components that perform to extremes far beyond their published spec sheets. This week an Asus netbook entered the cryo-freezer to see if its Intel Atom processor would bounce back from the ordeal. (See photos below) The team brought the board’s temperature down by 1 degree C per minute until it reached -180 degrees C. After 30 minutes there, it was warmed at the same rate to reach room temperature. The Asus then successfully booted up Windows and displayed a Word... [Read more]

New NASA budget to accelerate space careers

NASA’s top education official has noted an important upside to the agency’s revolutionary new budget. Because the new plan fosters entrepreneurial exploration projects, young professionals at these new space companies will take leadership roles far earlier in their careers than they would at old-line aerospace companies. Dr. Joyce Winterton, the agency’s assistant administrator for education, made the comment yesterday at a meeting of the education and public outreach advisory committee of the NASA Advisory Council attended by Astrobotic Technology.  Her comment was part of a talk on providing... [Read more]

Demonstrating 3D views of the Moon

The Astrobotic team won “best in show” at the the Society of Women Engineers’ Showcase Feb. 15 at Carnegie Mellon’s University Center, distributing custom red-cyan glasses to that visitors could enjoy stereo images from the Apollo program — demonstrating the vivid imagery that will be returned by the Astrobotic lunar rover expedition.  Read More →

Team moves into Planetary Robotics Lab

The ground floor of the new Gates-Hillman Center for Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon is devoted to the 5,000 square foot Planetary Robotics Lab. The PRL includes a 3,000 square foot high bay with computer controlled crane for engineering and experimentation, along with workrooms for fabrication of robots and their components. While the Gates-Hillman building was opened for most uses in fall 2009, move-in to the PRL took place last week as the last of the construction company gear and furniture staging areas cleared out.  Read More →

Robot arm begins carving composite mold

The Astrobotic team at Carnegie Mellon University brought a new computer-controlled robot arm into operation last month by loading up CAD files of the camera unit that will ride atop the mast at the rover’s center. The arm carved away foam to create a mold to be used for carbon composite layups to create the framework that will hold two wide-field HD cameras for 3D imagery plus a telephoto zoom HD camera. In the photo, the mold is approximately 18 inches long and five inches tall.  Read More →