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Omega Envoy Presents Mission Design At AAS GN&C Conference

Jdunn — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:57:50 -0800

This past week Jason Dunn, Chief Engineer for Omega Envoy, and Tapan Kulkarni, GNC Lead for Omega Envoy, attended the American Aeronautical Society's GNC conference in Breckenridge, Colorado to present a paper on the GNC Challenges for the Omega Envoy mission. In the paper several mission scenarios were presented which revealed our strategy for choosing the planned mission design to put our rover, Sagan, on the lunar surface. The paper also identifies the key GNC challenges that the mission will face.

Future work will build off the mission design with more rigorous STK simulations incorporating the spacecraft CAD models and other geometric properties.

A pdf version of the paper may be downloaded here.

Omega Envoy Announces Solidworks as Sponsor in Lunar Rover Effort

Jdunn — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:34:06 -0800

Today we are happy to announce that Solidworks, the leader in 3D CAD technology, has become a sponsor for the Omega Envoy Team in our efforts to reach the moon. With Solidworks high quality design, analysis, and rendering capabilities we are poised with a very strong package for the development of our lunar rover program.

The official press release can be found on our media page.

Let's welcome SAGAN our lunar rover to the team

Jdunn — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:16:22 -0800

Well everyone, the contest to name our rover has come to an end and we are so happy to announce that the name of our rover is in commemoration of the late Carl Sagan, a true inspiration to our team and probably most of you. the best part about the contest was that we left it up to all of you to decide the winner, and in the end 143 people voted!

You can read a blog post on the Launch Pad about the announcement.

Rover Naming Contest Coming To A Close

Jdunn — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:04:41 -0700

Wow! We are so impressed to see over 100 votes for our rover name! It was our plan to let the public decide, and it sure looks like you all have been. With that said, we will be bringing the contest to a close by our Open House Meeting, this Wednesday, Oct. 28th at 10:00 am EST. So if you have not voted yet, please do so before then.

As a bit of motivation to go vote, we currently have a tie between SAGAN and Knowledge. Will you be the one to break the tie?

Omega Envoy to Hold Open House Meeting in Orlando, Fl.

Jdunn — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:51:39 -0700

The Omega Envoy Project will be holding an "open house" style meeting, open to the public, to come learn about the project and find ways to get involved. We are trying to attract anyone, with any background, who may be interested in helping us reach the moon. The meeting will be held on Oct. 28th at the University of Central Florida. A meet and greet session will start at 8:00am followed by a brief presentation of the project at 10:00am and a question and answer session following that.

If you are interested in attending please RSVP to info@omegaenvoy.org.

Thanks, see you there!

Announcing a New Strategic Partnership

Jdunn — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:50:42 -0700

Today the Omega Envoy Project is very excited to announce a strategic partnership that has been in the making for the past year, since the team was formed. The partnership is with the University of Central Florida who has come on board to assist in the development and testing of our lunar rover. The early stages of this partnership may have been evident during the month of July, 2009 when the UCF DARPA Urban Challenge team worked with Omega Envoy to put the Rover 2.0 prototype on the Arctic Expedition at the Mars Society’s Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station at Devon Island. This group and others will play a pivotal role in the continual development of the Omega Envoy lunar rover program. The partnership also includes office and lab facilities at the UCF Research Park, faculty assistance, and funding through the Florida Space Grant Consortium for senior design projects.

A press release for this partnership can be found here.

Now on to more exciting news! Today we are also happy to announce that the Omega Envoy rover naming contest is now open for public voting. We were surprised with the great submissions, and have now narrowed them down to the three finalists. The primary goal of having a contest to name the rover was to allow the public to submit names and in the end allow the public to be the ones to pick the final name. So make your way to our newly renovated website and vote for your favorite rover name!

The Omega Envoy Rover Naming Contest Submission Deadline Has Ended

Jdunn — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:58:07 -0700

The contest we have been holding to have you all help name the Omega Envoy Rover has reached the deadline for submissions. In the next couple weeks our designated judges will choose the top three submissions and then an online poll will open for the community to vote on his/her favorite rover name. We made sure to run the competition this way so that in the end you all get to have the "ultimate say" as to what the rover should be named.

We have a lot of really good names submitted, and the Omega Envoy Team is very excited to see what our rover may be named.

So just keep your eye glued to our blog because we will post the poll on here very soon. Until then take a look at all the submissions on our youtube page.

Name the Omega Envoy Rover Contest Deadline Extended

Jdunn — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:28:46 -0700

We have extended the Name the Omega Envoy Rover Contest deadline to the end of August to allow more people to have a chance to enter. We have also modified the rules and guidelines so that even the Omega Envoy team members or anyone affiliated with the project may enter a submission. The rules are now specific to state though that shall a team member enter the competition he/she must be representing himself/herself and not his/her affiliation with the project.

So get on Youtube and submit a name already! We're tired of calling the rover Rover 2.0.

Omega Envoy Interview on Spacevidcast

Jdunn — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:55:43 -0700

This past Thursday, 7/16, Omega Envoy Team member Jason Dunn was interviewed on Spacevidcast about the project and how our student led team plans to win the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Bandwidth issues caused the interview to end a little short and unexpectedly, but nevertheless, it was still a great interview and a very fun time.

First Arctic Demonstration a Success, Much More To Come

Jdunn — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:30:39 -0700

Yesterday we completed our initial Rover 2.0 demonstration at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station at Devon Island. The initial demonstration was to remotely control the rover from Omega Envoy Headquarters in Orlando, Fl., take images of the crew hab, and stream the coverage live from mission control as well as the video from the rover feed. This was just the first of many more demonstrations the team plans to complete before the expedition concludes at the end of July. We also feel it is very important to be open with the community to the furthest extent possible about our testing and development program; for this reason we would like to share our de-brief notes from each demonstration.

Here is the first image taken by Rover 2.0. A great shot of the FMARS hab and a good demonstration of capturing images of historic sites on the moon!

From The Omega Envoy Project

This is a slide show of some images taken of the Rover 2.0 as we controlled it. As you can see, the terrain is very rough and a perfect place to prove our capabilities.

Lastly, we really want to thank our friends at Spacevidcast for streaming our live coverage of the demonstration. In case you missed it, here is the youtube video.