Astrobotic Technology Inc. is the leadership organization formed shortly after the prize was announced to coordinate the efforts of Carnegie Mellon University, The University of Arizona and Raytheon Company.
Dr. William “Red” Whittaker of Carnegie Mellon brings decades of experience in developing robots that walk into volcanoes, conduct field research in Antarctica, and crawl into failed nuclear plants to inspect the damages. One of Carnegie Mellon’s specialties is autonomous navigation through unmapped terrain.
The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of The University of Arizona is a premier center for research in planetary science. The laboratory has been actively involved in over a dozen interplanetary exploration missions including the ongoing Cassini-Huygens, Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Phoenix Mars Missions.
At Raytheon, a maverick group is converting the company’s precision propulsion systems and missile guidance technology into a planetary landing system. This leverages hundreds of millions of dollars of technology investment by Raytheon and its customers. Raytheon embodies manufacturing excellence developed by producing more than a million tactical and space missiles.
Why did you decide to enter the Google Lunar X PRIZE?
The prize will accelerate humanity’s expansion into cis-lunar space, a passion shared by all members of our team. The prize’s demand for high-definition video will enable everyone on Earth to be a part of this expedition, seeing the moon with the same clarity as the twelve Apollo astronauts. This is key to activating greater public support for settling the lunar frontier. And since this will be an independent mission, free to create innovative commercial activities that government projects are legally barred from offering, it will stretch people’s minds about what can be accomplished on the moon.
What do you think gives your team an advantage over your competitors?
On the rover side, Dr. Whittaker is world famous because he and his teams create breakthrough robots. For example, he won the 2007 Urban Challenge, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, by upgrading a Chevy Tahoe with the intelligence to drive itself through city traffic. This contest started with more than 80 competitors from the best robot shops from around the world.
The other key is landing safely on the moon. Launching from Earth is routinely available with commercial vehicles, but landing on another world requires custom hardware, software and sensors. Raytheon has the precision propulsion technology to get the rover down to the surface safely, and to the exact location required.
Describe in general terms your technical plans for winning the prize
We are in discussions with providers for a dedicated launch vehicle. It will launch a spacecraft comprised of a Star 37 solid rocket motor, a Star 24 solid rocket motor, liquid upper stage for final descent and landing, and the rover.
The spacecraft will dwell in low Earth orbit following launch, and then the Star 37 performs the trans-lunar injection. On the five-day coast to the moon, the liquid stage performs three mid course corrections. The Star 24 brakes all velocity near the moon, then computer vision registers to the terrain and guides the precision descent and landing using the liquid stage.
How, where, and when will your craft land on the Moon?
Red Rover will descend to a precision landing near the historic Apollo 11 site shortly after the 40th Anniversary in July 2009. Propulsion, tanks, fuel, oxidizer ride on pallet lander. Power and communications for both lander and rover are hosted in the rover.
How will you communicate with and download information from your craft while it is on the Moon?
Red Rover will carry low-gain omnidirectional and high-gain antennas to enable direct transmission from rover to multiple Earth stations. It will broadcast on the high-gain antenna while trekking, so non-HD video will be transmitted live in real time. The HD video required to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE is stored and transmitted over time.
How will your vehicle will move on the Moon?
Red Rover has four wheels driven by electric motors in a single gear ratio. A pilot on Earth will use “skid steering” commands a change direction by powering one side of the rover’s wheels while not powering – or reverse powering – the opposite set of wheels.
Which bonus prizes are you interested in?
We plan to compete for the heritage, distance and diversity prizes.
What additional scientific equipment above and beyond competition requirements, if any, might you be launching and why?
We plan an open call for scientific and commercial payloads, and we have specified mass, power and communications for these payloads.
Roster
Dr. William L. "Red" Whittaker
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. William L. "Red" Whittaker is the Fredkin Professor of Robotics, Director of the Field Robotics Center, and founder of the National Robotics Engineering Consortium, all at Carnegie Mellon University. He has an extensive record of successful developments of robots for craft, labor and hazardous duty. Examples include robots in field environments such as mines, work sites and natural terrain.
Dr. Whittaker's portfolio includes the development of computer architectures for controlling mobile robots; modeling and planning for non-repetitive tasks; complex problems of objective sensing in random and dynamic environments; and integration of complete field robot systems.
Dr. Whittaker is widely known for his achievements in the robotics community. A few of his awards include:
* Engelberger Technology Award
* Design News Special Achievement Award
* Hero of Manufacturing Award
* Aviation & Space Technology Award
Tony Spear
Program Manager, Astrobotic Lunar Mission
Mr. Spear is famous for his successful project management of the Mars Pathfinder mission, which returned NASA to the Red Planet on July 4, 1997. Pathfinder was a striking example of how to correctly implement a Faster Better Cheaper (FBC) mission.
In 1963 Mr. Spear started out at JPL as a deep space telecommunications systems engineer working on the Mariner missions to Mars, Venus, and Mercury. He later designed the Viking Mars mission orbiter to lander relay link, and implemented project planning for the deep space tracking network.
During the late 1970s Mr. Spear managed the design and development of three microwave radars and one radiometer for SEASAT, including the first high resolution space synthetic aperture imager. In the early 1980s he managed the development of Army Intelligence's mobile All Source, Intelligence Data Processing System (ASAS).
In the late 1980s through 1991 Mr. Spear worked on Magellan, the Venus Orbiter Imaging Radar (VOIR). Later he conducted a study of FBC methods for deep-space robotic missions.
From 1997 through his retirement in 1998 Mr. Spear was manager of the deep space advanced technology program. After retirement he has remained active as an advisor and consultant in the aerospace industry. Mr. Spear is currently a member of NASA Ares Design Review Board.
