DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Fw: NASA Team Demonstrates Robot Technology For Moon Exploration

Wed Feb 27 12:58:12 CST 2008

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "NASA News" <hqnews at mediaservices.nasa.gov>
To: "NASA News" <hqnews at mediaservices.nasa.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 10:05 AM
Subject: NASA Team Demonstrates Robot Technology For Moon Exploration


> Feb. 27, 2008
>
> Stephanie Schierholz
> Headquarters, Washington
> 202-358-4997/1272
> stephanie.schierholz at nasa.gov
>
> Katherine K. Martin
> Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
> 216-433-2406
> katherine.martin at grc.nasa.gov
>
> Brandi Dean
> Johnson Space Center, Houston
> 281-244-1403
> brandi.k.dean at nasa.gov
>
> RELEASE: 08-067
>
> NASA TEAM DEMONSTRATES ROBOT TECHNOLOGY FOR MOON EXPLORATION
>
> CLEVELAND - During the 3rd Space Exploration Conference Feb. 26-28 in
> Denver, NASA will exhibit a robot rover equipped with a drill
> designed to find water and oxygen-rich soil on the moon.
>
> "Resources are the key to sustainable outposts on the moon and Mars,"
> said Bill Larson, deputy manager of the In-Situ Resource Utilization
> (ISRU) project. "It's too expensive to bring everything from Earth.
> This is the first step toward understanding the potential for lunar
> resources and developing the knowledge needed to extract them
> economically."
>
> The engineering challenge was daunting. A robot rover designed for
> prospecting within lunar craters has to operate in continual darkness
> at extremely cold temperatures with little power. The moon has
> one-sixth the gravity of Earth, so a lightweight rover will have a
> difficult job resisting drilling forces and remaining stable. Lunar
> soil, known as regolith, is abrasive and compact, so if a drill
> strikes ice, it likely will have the consistency of concrete.
>
> Meeting these challenges in one system took ingenuity and teamwork.
> Engineers demonstrated a drill capable of digging samples of regolith
> in Pittsburgh last December. The demonstration used a laser light
> camera to select a site for drilling then commanded the four-wheeled
> rover to lower the drill and collect three-foot samples of soil and
> rock.
>
> "These are tasks that have never been done and are really difficult to
> do on the moon," said John Caruso, demonstration integration lead for
> ISRU and Human Robotics Systems at NASA's Glenn Research Center in
> Cleveland.
>
> In 2008, the team plans to equip the rover with ISRU's Regolith and
> Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction
> experiment, known as RESOLVE. Led by engineers at NASA's Kennedy
> Space Center, Fla., the RESOLVE experiment package will add the
> ability to crush a regolith sample into small, uniform pieces and
> heat them.
>
> The process will release gases deposited on the moon's surface during
> billions of years of exposure to the solar wind and bombardment by
> asteroids and comets. Hydrogen is used to draw oxygen out of iron
> oxides in the regolith to form water. The water then can be
> electrolyzed to split it back into pure hydrogen and oxygen, a
> process tested earlier this year by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space
> Center in Houston.
>
> "We're taking hardware from two different technology programs within
> NASA and combining them to demonstrate a capability that might be
> used on the moon," said Gerald Sanders, manager of the ISRU project.
> "And even if the exact technologies are not used on the moon, the
> lessons learned and the relationships formed will influence the next
> generation of hardware."
>
> Engineers participated in the ground-based rover concept demonstration
> from four NASA centers, the Canadian Space Agency, the Northern
> Centre for Advanced Technology in Sudbury, Ontario, and Carnegie
> Mellon University's Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh.
>
> Carnegie Mellon was responsible for the robot's design and testing,
> and the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology built the drilling
> system. Glenn contributed the rover's power management system. NASA's
> Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., built a system that
> navigates the rover in the dark. The Canadian Space Agency funded a
> Neptec camera that builds three-dimensional images of terrain using
> laser light.
>
> All the elements together represent a collaboration of the Human
> Robotic Systems and ISRU projects at Johnson. These projects are part
> of the Exploration Technology Development Program, which is managed
> by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
>
> To view images of the rover in development, visit:
>
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/lunar_truck.html
>
> For more information about NASA's exploration plans to the moon and
> beyond, visit:
>
> http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
>
>
> -end-
>
>
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