What do you get when you cross a multi-national competition with "exploration through open source collaboration" and add a bit of youthful motivation for good measure? Give up? You get Team Cheese, a group of mechanical engineering seniors from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. While completing the course requirements for their design capstone course, Team Cheese assisted Team FREDNET on a very challenging problem.

How can you bring approximately 200kg with significant downward momentum to a stop while minimizing the impact force upon the mission load with a system that conforms to a minimal weight requirement?

The image illustrates a design method that uses three pod legs cantilevered by secondary struts which compress to absorb impact forces during the landing. What's more interesting, the design is backed up by a very detailed and expansive report that includes all the calculations used that led to this particular design. This report also includes constraints that will be critical when it comes time to scale this model to the final Lunar Landing System, which adds much future value to Team FREDNET.

What's the lesson to take away from all this? Team FREDNET is actively looking to engage in more partnerships with University teams as the design evolves and the goals become more solid. Team FREDNET has open tasks related to Lunar Bus Battery Selection, adding Solar Cells to the lander design, selecting a Laser Rangefinder that's appropriate for the navigation during landing, and even opportunities for a team to determine a good way to protect the Team FREDNET Lunar Rover from dangerous space radiation and a whole lot more! Anybody interested in any one of these tasks is encouraged to contact Fred Bourgeois [fred (dot) bourgeois (at) teamfrednet (dot) org] for further information and contacts to further develop an applicable project formulation that adapt to individual University design requirements.