Google Lunar X PRIZE Complete Teams RSS Feed

Astronaut Jeff Hoffman on MIT student involvement.

Next Giant Leap — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:58:39 -0800

Mike Fabio of the X PRIZE Foundation interviewed Next Giant Leap's Jeff Hoffman after our December 17th press conference in Mountain View, CA.

Thanks for recording and posting this Mike!

One rover, two rovers... many rovers?

acsete — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:07:58 -0800

If you have followed Team FREDNET during the last few months you have probably noticed that our team members are working on two very different rover designs. Why do we develop several designs instead of focusing our efforts on the design?

The thing is that we are trying to build up a large and engaged community and there are many ways to do it. We have chosen a way where instead of expecting everybody to support one official design line we invite and encourage people to work on their own ideas and demonstrate that it provides the best solution for a given problem. Using our public forum and wiki they can collaborate with other members of the team and share common components across the competing designs. They may even find other members who support their idea and would like to contribute to it. They can organize themselves in informal working groups without the need for any official approval from the team management.

While this may not be the most efficient way towards winning the Google Lunar X PRIZE, we are sure that this is one of the best ways to engage interested individuals and groups and give them a fair chance to prove what they are capable of. Basically, it is the same concept as the whole Google Lunar X PRIZE but applied at a smaller scale.

Currently we have this parallel design study/competition concept going on in the rover area, but we expect similar parallel design studies applied to other subsystems as well. If the organizational concept works out, we can at the end choose the most suitable configuration. It also provides additional security against making the wrong design decisions early in the process and suffering from it for the rest of the program.

The two rover concepts currently being worked on at Team FREDNET: WRV1 (left) and Jaluro (right).

Of course, turning an idea into a design and implementation that can prove suitable for a lunar mission requires hard work and stamina. There is a very long way from a conceptual design to a working prototype. Fortunately, we have many active members who has the right stuff to take their ideas all the way to the end.

You can read more about our rover design competition Moon amateurs invite rover designs from the public.

What are your thoughts about this? Will it work or will it leave us in a hopeless situation? We'd love to hear your comments.

Start possibilities of LuRoCa from the lunar surface

SELENE — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:48:29 -0800

Fig. 1

Our rocket-driven lunar rover can be transformed into a surface-to-surface missile using a simple adjustable inclined ramp (see Fig. 1). Or it can be driven over the lunar surface as a conventional rocket-powered car. The mode of travel will be determined by the actual conditions at the lunar landing site including any topographic challenges or obstacles present on site. The reason we have designed our propulsion system to allow for all 10 solid fuel rocket engines in the back of the rover to be ignited in clusters or, if needed, all at once is to allow us greater flexibility following the landing of our Selena 1 spacecraft.
If we set the start altitude h₀ = 0 and the optimal start angle α_o = 45º, the trajectory length s is the following function of the start speed v₀:
s(v₀)=v₀²/g.
The lunar gravitational acceleration g is approximately 1.63 m/s² and the required trajectory length s is 500 m, so we get a start speed v₀ of approximately 28.55 m/s or 102.78 km/h, which is not very high.

Fig.2

Fig. 2 shows the flight parable. With the optimal start angle α_o = 45º and the calculated start speed v₀ we get a maximum altitude of 125 m.
Our LuRoCa vehicle as a rocket-propelled lunar rover offers distinct advantages over electric motor-driven lunar rover concepts in terms of its ability to maintain mobility in challenging terrain, in addition to its overall simplicity and reliability. Should one or more of the wheels lock or suffer a mechanical failure, or should the vehicle overturn -- we are exploring several attitude recovery and stability control options -- it will still be possible to propel the rover forward. In contrast, if the landing site for a remote-controlled electric motor-driven lunar rover happens to be situated in very rocky terrain, it will be extremely difficult if not almost impossible for this type of rover to travel the full distance of 500 meters as required by the rules of this competition.

Keeping the shiny side up!

Next Giant Leap — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:23:49 -0800

A recent NASA article about the landing hazards faced by the six Apollo landers describes just how challenging it is to find a "safe" place to land on the lunar surface. (See Four Out of Six Apollos Recommend ALHAT)

This article highlights the importance of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) as well as the desirable aspects of a good Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) system.

Next Giant Leap team member, Draper Laboratory, has extensive history in GN&C dating back to the original Apollo Landings. Critical technologies including GN&C and ALHAT are being developed under Draper’s Independent Research and Development (IR&D) program. Their goal is to develop and mature an autonomous lunar landing GN&C and sensing system for robotic lunar descent vehicles that is capable of identifying and avoiding surface hazards and enabling a safe, precision landing within tens of meters of certified and designated landing sites anywhere on the moon under any lighting conditions.

Additional reading: Draper Laboratory "Explorations" - Spring 2007

Team STELLAR Moving Quickly in the New Year

stellar — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:10:42 -0800

First and foremost, a Happy NewSpace New Year to all!

Following-up on multiple discussions during the last few months, Team STELLAR is moving quickly in 2009 to connect with new talent and expand its support base in Virginia. Two significant events deserve to be highlighted:

1. Team STELLAR has been invited to speak at the Virginia General Assembly Aerospace Days in early February as part of an effort to develop the Virginia Aerospace Roundtable. Jack Kennedy*, one of Virginia's NewSpace leaders, is a key force behind this effort and we appreciate his invitation.

2. The College of Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University is quite interested in Team STELLAR, and we will be presenting at a meeting in mid-February that is being hosted by Dr. Don Leo, Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

Although Team STELLAR headquarters is in Raleigh, NC, we have stated from the beginning that we intend to work across the Southeast United States to broaden both our talent base and the commercial opportunities we will provide. This year will see an increase in our efforts.

*Jack is an attorney and was appointed by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to membership of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority and the Virginia Aerospace Advisory Council. He is also an elected "ADVOCATE" of the Space Frontier Foundation

- Jeff Krukin (www.jeffkrukin.com)

The Moon with a Webcam

acsete — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:07:17 -0800

I am working on a setup where I'm trying to mount a cheap webcam onto my Meade ETX-90 telescope for terrestrial observations. While I was working on the setup the other night I looked out the window and saw the Moon behind a tree. Without thinking too much I pointed the telescope towards the Moon and recorded this video.

Concerning the bad quality it should be noted that:

It was recorded with a webcam
It was recorded through a double-glas window (which was dirty)
The Moon was behind a tree

I will try to improve on the setup, although I made it for a completely different purpose.

Air & Space Magazine on GLXP

Astrobotic — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:49:40 -0800

Air & Space Magazine on GLXP.

Air & Space's GLXP profile hit newsstands today. The phenomenal images in the hardcopy version are worth the buy. The teaser on the magazine cover reads "The Next Moon Race - Robot Division". Text version is online at
http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Red--The-Robots.html
First-tier magazines take the story to new audience, and tell the story with depth and quality not possible with most reporting. A lot of backgrounding, writing, photography, editing and production went into this. Thanks and kudos to Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine.

Red.

Start possibilities of LuRoCa

SELENE — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:03:47 -0800

3-D drawing of LuRoCa prototype

SELENE — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:04:51 -0800

Just a fun little video

Jdunn — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:50:55 -0800