Parts to battle lunar heat take shape
March 4, 2010
The overriding technical challenge of operating a rover near the Moon’s equator is the intense, prolonged heat produced by solar radiation and the hot regolith over which the rover travels. All powered equipment inside the robot generates its own heat as well, which must be routed to the radiator for release into space. In the photo below, the team has a key composite part sealed in vacuum to achieve better bonding of the layers. This part, the motor strap, connects the heat-generating 28v brushless motor to other high-conductivity composite straps leading up to the radiator. The schematic... [Read more]
Team adds mock head to prototype rover
March 1, 2010
The third prototype lunar robot developed by the Astrobotic team has been crowned by a mock camera/antenna head, completing its overall look. The unit was robotically machined to perfect the team’s skills in creating the foam molds over which carbon fiber will be laid up to build the actual camera and antenna housings. The horizontal section will house two wide-field cameras with a telephoto zoom between them. The white top of this unit is a radiator to regulate internal temperatures. The dome will house an S-band “evolved” antenna. Read More →
Fabrication starts on battery pack mold
February 28, 2010
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
February 23, 2010
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
February 22, 2010
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]
Demonstrating 3D views of the Moon
February 15, 2010
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
February 8, 2010
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
February 8, 2010
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 →
Lunar Expo at Carnegie Mellon
January 26, 2010
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... [Read more]
NASA selects Astrobotic and Carnegie Mellon for two Moon contracts
November 23, 2009
PITTSBURGH, PA – Nov. 23, 2009 – NASA today selected Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon University for two contracts to study Moon excavation robots and methods to simulate the one-sixth lunar gravity on Earth. Lightweight excavation robots are key to recovering the water and hydrocarbon deposits at the Moon’s poles, which will enable explorers to “live off the land” rather than hauling all their supplies from Earth at great expense. New results from NASA probes released last week show that the water content in the polar soil is 10 to 30 times richer than previously thought,... [Read more]
