- Private lunar rover. Courtesy Astrobotic Technology
NASA has made an offer to buy data provided via commercial lunar landers. The space agency announcement falls under its Innovative Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) program, an initiative with a total budget of $30 million.
One private group has already taken up the NASA offer: Astrobotic Technology, a Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) spin-off company.
The company’s planned first expedition to the Moon will revisit the Apollo 11 site in December 2012.
Doing so, Astrobotic would claim up to $10 million in NASA data purchases, up to $24 million in the Google Lunar X Prize, and snag Florida’s $2 million bonus for launching from that state.
The mission will connect the Internet to the Moon, deliver high-definition video in 3D, as well as carry payloads and convey the experience to the world.
To date, Carnegie Mellon and the company have expended more than $3 million creating prototype robots and mission designs following the 2007 announcement of the Google Lunar X Prize.
According to Astrobotic, the new NASA program to buy data from successful commercial landings will accelerate the company’s work on the spacecraft that will carry its robot down to the surface.
Tranquility trek
In a press statement, William “Red” Whittaker, Astrobotic founder and director of CMU’s Field Robotics Center, noted: “The sensing devices and software needed for an automated lunar landing are evolving from our technologies for driving autonomous cars.”
Much of the technology for winning the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge car race applies directly to lunar landing, Whittaker added.
The mission of Astrobotic Technology is to pioneer lunar enterprise with a series of robotic expeditions, starting with a return to Apollo 11 and then missions to the poles to prospect for water and other volatiles locked in subsurface ice.
The firm’s lunar rover weighs 160 lbs. and is about five feet tall. Its “Tranquility Trek” mission to the Apollo 11 site is expected to last 10-12 days, until sunset cuts off solar power and the rover hibernates at temperatures expected to go as low as minus 298 degrees F.
The robot is expected to awake for further exploration two weeks later when the Sun rises, unless the extreme cold has damaged the electronics.
Astrobotic is one group among several vying for the Google Lunar X Prize.
For more information on all the private-sector efforts, go to:
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/
By Leonard David