Astrobotic Technology will carry 130 lbs. (60 kg) to the Moon for researchers and marketers as part of its maiden expedition in 2012 to win the Google Lunar X Prize.

Science instruments, prototype exploration devices and commercial packages will be carried at $700,000 per pound, plus a $250,000 fee per payload to cover the engineering costs of integrating it into either the expedition’s lander or its solar-powered robot.

The company posted a technical description of the service on its Web site, along with a “Request for Information” asking potential users to characterize how they would use this capability. Potential near-term applications include investigations to confirm and characterize water – either from volatiles at the poles or from the ephemeral surface traces found everywhere on the Moon. Other investigations might produce oxygen from lunar soil and characterize how surface rovers and later human explorers might get access to underground volcanic caves via the “skylights” recently found by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Celestis Inc. already has reserved 11 of the 130 pounds available on the initial Moon mission. Houston-based Celestis operates a space burial service for cremated remains, with eight missions thus far to the Moon, Earth orbit or a suborbital trajectory.

Ordinarily, researchers seeking access to the Moon or other planetary surface must develop an entire multi-instrument mission themselves. NASA spends several hundred million dollars for each of its ‘Discovery’ and ‘New Frontiers’ projects. The Astrobotic by-the-pound approach enables researchers and marketers to deploy a single instrument to the lunar surface for substantially less cost.

Astrobotic’s mission is pursuing a Google prize that will award up to $24 million for the first team to reach the Moon with an independently developed robot that transmits high-definition video after traveling at least 500 meters. Astrobotic will earn additional revenue from carrying payloads for space agencies, aerospace contractors and corporations.

To get both its 150-pound rover and 130 pounds of third-party payload to the Moon, Astrobotic intends to exploit the impressive lift capability of the Falcon 9 rocket developed by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. Last year NASA awarded $1.6 billion in contracts to SpaceX to have the Falcon 9 deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

Astrobotic Technology plans a series of robotic Moon missions following the “Tranquility Trek” expedition in 2013 to the Apollo 11 site. Later missions on a roughly annual basis will tackle goals such as prospecting for water ice in at the Moon’s poles and seeking out volcanic caves as low-cost shelters for both robots and astronauts.

The Request for Information is here.

The Payload Specifications document is here.

A high-resolution image is here.

The third prototype for Astrobotic Technology’s lunar robot has innovations that will enable it to survive the blistering heat at the Moon’s equator, which is the robot’s destination in 2013 when it will visit the Apollo 11 site.

Noon at the equator is hotter than boiling water: 270 degrees F. The robot beats the heat by keeping a cool side aimed away from the Sun to radiate heat off to the black sky. It travels toward or away from the sun (generally east or west) without turning its radiator into the light. Only the solar cells on the hot side ever face the sun. The robot can travel north and south by tacking like a sailboat.

The Apollo 11 crew landed shortly after local dawn and left by mid-morning, so Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never encountered the noontime extreme. (Each day on the Moon is two weeks of sun followed by two weeks of darkness and extreme cold.)

Led by Dr. William “Red” Whittaker, famed Carnegie Mellon roboticist, Astrobotic intends to win up to $24 million in the Google Lunar X Prize with this robot. It will be a rolling TV studio and Internet node, sending back high-definition video of its adventures. As it examines the Apollo 11 site, it will discover how various materials used in Apollo 11 have weathered under 40 years of radiation and micrometeorite bombardment – information that will help NASA and other space agencies improve the designs for their upcoming human lunar expeditions.

The fundamental innovation developed at Carnegie Mellon is the rover’s asymmetrical shape. On the cold side, there’s a flat radiator angled up to the black lunar sky as well as a vertical panel for the logos of the corporations sponsoring the expedition. On the hot side, a half-cone of solar cells generates ample electrical power to power the wheels, run the computers and energize the transmitter beaming back stereo HD video to Earth.

Astrobotic Technology's Moon rover

The following illustration shows how the rover will appear on the Moon.

Another innovation places is a lunar-specific drive train. Unlike Mars rovers that have motors in the hub of each wheel, the Astrobotic lunar rover tucks two motors inside the body of the robot where they are safeguarded both from heat and the abrasive lunar dust. Each motor drives one side of the robot’s wheels using a chain drive, like a bicycle. The chain drive mechanism has been tested in a Carnegie Mellon vacuum chamber to ensure that is does not experience “cold welding” – a process where materials sometimes merge or weld to each other when touching in a hard vacuum.

Two interior motors will connect to gold hubs to drive each side of wheels

Composite parts and drive train tested in vacuum chamber

Key to the design are tailored composite structures made from carbon fiber tape and resin. Many aerospace designs use composite materials to achieve high strength at low weight; composite parts being shaped for the lunar machine have the added ability to transmit heat from the hot to the cold side with more efficiency than copper or other metals. The team has fabricated several of the most complicated and high-stress components and subjected them to both thermal and stress tests. The thermal tests instrumented keys pieces with thermocouples to measure the heat flow from hot end to cold end. The flexure test documented how much pressure a piece can withstand before buckling.

Composite material heat transfer test monitored by thermocouples

The challenge of surviving the lunar night, where the minus 240 degree F temperature is almost as cold as liquid nitrogen, is still to be solved. Surviving the night is not required to win the main Google Lunar X PRIZE but would generate a bonus. The team is examining how to package lithium ion batteries so they function again after the two weeks of cryogenic cold.

The team also must develop a landing platform to descend from lunar orbit to the surface; launch from Earth and transit to the Moon will be accomplished via already-established commercial launch vehicles and kick motors.

The Astrobotic robot heading to Apollo 11 will capture the “magnificent desolation” described by Buzz Aldrin in both high definition video and 3D video – the first planetary robot to accomplish either feat. Twin HD cameras will give armchair explorers back on Earth the opportunity to see the Moon with the clarity and depth perception enjoyed by the 12 astronauts who walked its strange surface.

Click on images for large versions

The image above is the Earth captured during the Apollo 11 flight combined with a computer-generated image of the Astrobotic robot and spacecraft.  The images below show the third prototype design of the robot and the “stack” of rocket motors that will propel it from low Earth orbit toward the Moon and then slow it down upon arrival.  To see all the images on this page in stereo, please go to the Astrobotic Store to order your personal 3D glasses. These enable users to see the “anaglyph” images on our site, in which the image for the left eye has been tinted red and the image for the right eye tinted cyan. The red and cyan filters on the glasses let each eye predominantly see only the image intended for that eye.

The Apollo astronauts snapped still photos in stereo, generally by taking an image and then stepping to the left to take its pair. Several of their 3D photographs are shown below.

Other methods of 3D viewing can produce more accurate colors. Gaming systems (for PCs or consoles) can generate alternating left eye views and right eye views 30 to 60 times per second. They must be used with “shutter glasses” with lenses that go opaque for the left and right eyes in synch, so that each eye only sees the images intended for it. In theaters, dual projectors can project both images simultaneously but with different polarizations. Customers wear glasses with left and right lenses polarized to pass only the desired image for each eye.

When the Astrobotic rover roams the lunar surface with its dual cameras, the twin views will be beamed back to Earth where any or all of these methods can produce the 3D effect for viewers.

Astrobotic will execute robotic lunar missions to collect exclusive data needed by space agencies and aerospace firms planning Moon expeditions. Accurate lunar surface data are key to cutting costs, accelerating schedules and enhancing safety.

Planners need a wide variety of information collected on the surface to enhance and confirm the less-detailed orbital observations of today’s lunar satellites. Astrobotic intends to collect these data sets starting in 2012 through a series of robotic missions to those areas on the Moon of high interest. Astrobotic’s missions will be self-financed, so customers pay for data only after it has been successfully collected. This contrasts with the current system of governments funding entire missions and bearing all risks of mission or sensor failure.

Astrobotic will create a “Digital Moon” by developing an integrated lunar library of company-collected data combined with information from open sources. Data types will range from radiation and soil characteristics to the performance of various components and materials in the lunar environment. Data products will range from raw collections to highly processed information solutions that meet our customers’ needs.

Astrobotic will select the goals for each mission through extensive consultation with its customers. For example, landers and surface infrastructure can be based on in-situ measurements of topography, dust conditions, soil mechanics, micrometeorite impact rates, illumination patterns, Earth-views for communications, and the like. Key materials and components for future projects can be delivered to the Moon by Astrobotic to characterize their performance in the actual lunar environment, rather than in simulations. Aerospace suppliers, for example, will be able to use Astrobotic missions to give their equipment “lunar heritage” – a tremendous advantage when competing for major lunar contracts.

In addition to data licensing, Astrobotic will deliver payloads, perform on-the-Moon services and generate interactive, high-definition media content for television, the Web, science centers and theme parks. These parallel revenue streams to defray mission costs are one reason that licensing data from Astrobotic will be very cost-effective for customers.

Equatorial mission to be followed by polar rovers

The company’s initial mission is the Tranquility Trek^TM expedition planned for May 2011 to the historic Apollo 11 site. The company selected Apollo 11 as the initial destination both for its high public interest and for the ability to see how materials left there have weathered from radiation and micrometeorite bombardment. This will be key information for design of future outposts. The mission also aims to win the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize and demonstrate precision landing at designated destination, within meters of the intended coordinates.

The first rover will be equipped with stereo HD cameras and a telephoto HD camera as its primary data-gathering instruments. During the descent, the cameras will capture data on how the lander’s rocket motor plume disturbs the lunar regolith.

During the expedition, the cameras will be able to observe the rover’s wheels as they interact with the regolith, as well as how dust accumulates on the robot’s solar cells and radiator panels. The composite structure will be seeded with thermocouples for monitoring various locations’ status as the rover passes through the temperature extreme of the lunar day.

As shown in the below table, current planning has missions two and three directed to the poles because NASA and other agencies plan to establish permanent outposts there. The South Pole and North Pole scouts will compile detailed terrain maps and collect data requested by the customer communities.

Astrobotic’s anticipated fourth mission is the Lava Tube Explorer.  This robot will scout lunar caves caused by lava flows, looking for ones with easy-to-traverse entrances and stable roofs.  Human crews can shelter in lava tubes protetcted from radiation, and during the lunar night, they won’t be exposed to the extreme tw0-week cold soak.  Lava tubes also may harbor volatiles from very early in the Moon’s history.

The fifth mission in the initial slate of projects intends to confirm the presence of water ice in the deep polar craters. Because ice would provide life support needs and valuable propellant for spacecraft returning to Earth, data about it will be exceedingly valuable. Descending into a permanently dark crater is an engineering challenge that Astrobotic intends to approach after gaining on-the-Moon operating experience.

The sixth mission will demonstrate construction methods and gather information on soil mechanics so that the power and machine sizes for future construction can be more accurately estimated.