DocM Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Astrobotics is a spinoff from Carnegie Mellon university that is building a lunar lander & rover system for the $30M Google Lunar X-Prize competition, but their mission goes well beyond GLXP. They want to build an infrastructure that will let them fly payloads to the moon on a commercial basis; meaning researchers, NASA, whoever could pay them to deliver rovers, experiments or whatever to the lunar surface - or perhaps later to other bodies - using a mass-produced system instead of one-offs. Payloads can be fixed on the lander, or customers can build on their rovers basic systems for roll your own rover missions. The co-hosting of several payloads is possible on a single flight. All comms are relayed through the lander, simplifying the payload designs. Their GLXP entry has signed up to be launched on a Falcon 9, which they also list as their primary launch vehicle in their users guide. Links & pics below. Home: http://astrobotic.net/ Astrobotics Payload Users Guide (PDF).... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 Link.... Project at Carnegie Mellon is to put a robot on moonWilliam ?Red? Whittaker is still shooting for the moon. But Whittaker, a Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor and CEO of Astrobotic Technology Inc., says his team has pushed back its plans to land a robot on the moon by a year ? to May 2015 ? to tailor a robot suited to the expedition's new destination: the lunar south pole. The CMU/Astrobotic team is competing to claim a portion of a multimillion-dollar prize for landing a robot on the moon. The team's new plan calls for a robot prospector to drill for ice samples at the moon's south pole to try to confirm the existence of water there, a possibility lunar orbiters and a lunar penetrator have strongly suggested in recent years. ?It is high-risk and high-return,? Whittaker said. His team is among 26, including one from Penn State University, that are competing to claim a portion of the Google Lunar X prize, which will go to the first team to land a robot on the moon, make it travel 500 meters and transmit video to earth. Prize organizers extended the deadline for the contest several times, most recently to December 2015. The CMU/Astrobotic team built and tested its lunar lander. Last year Astrobotic signed a contract for a $60 million space shot with the privately owned Space X company. Along the way, the company picked up $610,000 in NASA contracts. Astrobotic president David Gump said confirming water at the poles would be a major discovery that could point the way to the production of rocket fuel on the moon ? water is a critical component ? and the use of the moon as a fueling and launching point for further space exploration. ?The big question is: How can you do exploration at an affordable price? The key to that is being off-planet. If we can get propellant for a Mars trip on the moon, it will really make getting to Mars much cheaper,? Gump said. Going to the south pole of the moon means the trip can occur only during a one-month window when the cold, dark region has a small amount of light. Whittaker said the robot will have to be slightly larger and stronger than originally envisioned. But he's excited about the possibilities inherent in a lunar polar mission. ?There is no more significant deliberate discovery that a robot can achieve in a near-term mission than to confirm the existence of ice at the poles of the moon. ... Given the life opportunity of a landing on the moon, why not make it count?? Whittaker said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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