NASA Moon Bots In The Arctic

by ScienceDave | July 22, 2007 at 08:16 am
700 views | 20 Recommendations | 1 comment

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Haughton Crater

Haughton Crater

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uploaded by ScienceDave

Nasa is currently field testing two new robots for lunar exploration.  "Big news!  We have two on Mars!" you might think, but these two new bots are special -  they will be used to help prospect a future site for moon colonization.

BY 2020, NASA plans on having astronauts back on the moon setting up a lunar outpost, and looking for cheese.  However, they must first scout out the landscape for mineral deposits, water, and other topographical details that would be most suitable to set up home-sweet-home.

As of July 10, the two robots and a number of scientists were busy in Haughton Crater, Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic performing trial runs.  This crater was chosen not only for its harsh polar environment, but  also because it is similar in size to the Shackelton Crater on the south pole of the moon, a crater suspected to have ice hiding amongst its shadows. [source]

The mission hopes to perform a number of tasks, most notably to have two robots simultaneously and autonomously survey a 700x700km site, line by line, while the team of scientists analyzes the live data streams from a mock base camp.  Furthermore, they will be testing new hardware and software for collecting and analyzing data collected in the crater

The goal of the Human-Robot Site Survey Project is to develop robots that can perform mapping and surveying tasks over a wide area. Unlike goal-directed traverses and isolated sampling tasks, such as those carried out by the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), site survey requires systematic area coverage and long duration operations in a geographically bound region. This makes the operational modes previously used for planetary rovers inappropriate for survey.

Each 165lb  bot has attached a number of instruments, including [source]:

  • Ground penetrating Radar - to detect the underlying ground features, including ice and water surveying
  • 3D Survey Lidar - with millimeter accuracy, this number will produce an accurate topographic map up to a few hundreds of meters away.
  • Stereo Cameras - to provide a simple estimate of the environment
  • 2D Laser Scanner - in essence, an electronic bumper
  • Digital Compass, Sun tracker, GPS, Wheel and Steering encoders - to get where it needs to go
"We are learning about the awesome potential of human and robot teams," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., where the group conducting the survey is based. "Studying how humans and robots can maximize scientific returns in sites such as Devon Island will prepare us to walk on the moon and Mars."

 

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Jordan Yerman
Jordan Yerman
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:30 on July 22nd, 2007

... Awesome. Just as long as they don't rise up against us, that's all I'm saying.

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