Google Lunar X PRIZE Complete Teams RSS Feed

ARCA video journal entry 8

Bogdan — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:32:20 -0700

New Sponsor: TresCom Technology

Open Moon — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:21:41 -0700

We are very happy to welcome our new sponsor TresCom Technology!

TresCom provides us with technical facilities and ressource logistics.

Why we appreciate this avenue:

We will have access to the knowledge of a team experienced in communication and traffic engineering.

We think this is an important step towards technical realization of hardware modules.

...and thank´s for your true interest in collaboration!

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ARCA video journal entry 7

Bogdan — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:39:25 -0700

Expanded payload opportunities now available

Astrobotic — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:59:02 -0700

Astrobotic Technology today announced that it has vastly increased the amount of payload that it can deliver to the Moon for researchers and marketers, as part of its maiden expedition in 2012 to win the Google Lunar X Prize. The company will be able to carry 240 pounds (109 kg) to the lunar surface for space agency technologists, academic researchers and marketers.

The company previously had offered only 12 pounds of payload to third parties.

The payload delivery service is available for $700,000 per pound, plus a $250,000 fee per payload to cover the engineering costs of integrating it into either the expedition’s lander or its solar-powered robot.

A technical description of the service is available on the Astrobotic Web site, along with the “Request for Information” asking potential users to characterize how they would use this capability.

The RFI is available at:
http://astrobotictechnology.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/astrobotic-pa...

The Payload Specification document is available at
http://astrobotictechnology.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/astrobotic-pa...

ARCA video journal entry 6

Bogdan — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:40:19 -0700

Composite battery pack pulled from mold

Astrobotic — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:47:13 -0800

The rover will operate with a 273 W-hr battery pack to provide peak power as well as power when the rover's solar array is oriented away from the Sun. The pack is comprised of A123 lithium ion cells, which will be attached to one of the interior I-beams anchoring the radiator to the chassis.

After designing and machining molds, the team laid up carbon composite materials over the molds this week to test production of the battery pack holder. In the photos, the cells are about the diameter of a U.S. quarter.

Lander Thermal Design and Analysis

Andrew Barton — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:57:48 -0800

The White Label Space engineering team has started the design and analysis of the thermal subsystem for our our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) lander. Since the lander will operate as a telecommunications relay for the rover, both the lander and the rover must be capable of withstanding the high temperature environment of the lunar day.

Starting from the design outlined in our Mission Concept Summary document, our specialists Martin Lemmens and Michiel Vullings are defining the external surface optical properties needed to maintain the lander's internal equipment within the required operating limits. To analyse the thermal performance of candidate designs, the team is constructing radiative equilibirum models such as as the one shown in the picure below.

This early model includes only the hexagonal body of the lander and a deployable solar array. The lander is offset above a simulated lunar surface.

Following the same approach that was used in NASA's (Lunar) Surveyor missions, the solar array is actuated about one axis. By controlling the roll angle of the lander at the time of touchdown, the rotation axis will point either north or south, and thus it is possible to point the solar array directly at the sun for the complete lunar day.

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Hybrid rover prototype 2 completed

SELENE — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:18:04 -0800

The hybrid rover prototype 2 is completed and ready for outdoor tests and launches. We gave the rover the name RLR - short form for Rocket Launching Robot. See the rover also at Let's Make Robots!

3rd International Symposium on Nano Structures (OZ-10)

Open Moon — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:33:14 -0800

Our aerospace engineer Carsten Scharfenberg attended the 3rd International Symposium on Nano Structures (OZ-10) in order to gain more information about ALICE, a recent alternative rocket propellant.

This is Carsten´s report:

As I’m striving towards a bigger understanding on Alice propulsion technologies I attended OZ-10. This is a conference on recent advances in nano technologies organized by ZOZ GmbH – a german company that is a global player in nano materials.

The questions I hoped to get an answer to were: 1. Where to obtain nano aluminum? 2. If it is too expansive: How to produce it on my own? 3. How to deal with the powder itself? Especially: What safety requirements do I have to meet?

I got most of the answers but first of all I will cover the conference itself. It took place in the townhall of Wenden, which is a small town in the german countryside. I planned to arrive one day before the beginning of the conference. Alas, these plans were foiled by the storm “Xanthia” which caused damage to the railway power lines so I was forced to interrupt my journey for one night some hundred kilometers before reaching my destination. Nevertheless participants arrived from all over the world, especially from the far east (there were referees from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China) – even the US Airforce was present. The main topics of this conference were: surface coatings and new high performance materials in mechanical engineering, in battery storage technologies and in hydrogen storage technologies. The absolute highlight of the conference – from my point of view – was the presentation of Zentallium (by Bayer MaterialScience) which is an alloy of aluminum and carbon nano tubes that is somewhat lighter than pure aluminum but as strong as steel.

I soon figured out that I was exactly in the right place to learn about nano aluminum as some of the attendants had lots of experience with this material. But I also had to hear that I severly underestimated the dangers of nano aluminum. Fresh aluminum surfaces are highly reactive. So if nano aluminum that was produced in an oxygen-free athmosphere is exposed to air it bursts into flames immediatly. This was known to me before, but what I did not know is that even nano aluminum with an oxide layer (so it is stable in air) can cause dust explosions. Also mixing the powder with water is dangerous if the oxide layer is too thin. So it is important to control the thickness of the oxide layer or alternatively the layer of some chemical deactivation agent.

Because of these dangers (and because of its short lifetime) it is not easy to buy nano aluminum. Big companies will only deliver to other big companies or governmental institutions. But it is possible to cheaply buy aluminum powder with a particle size of a few mircrons. This would be a good starting point for further milling to a smaller size. For this purpose we could build a simple ball mill on our own – the only challenge would be to figure out good milling parameters to actually achieve nano sized powder. Nevertheless safety measures have to be applied that can only be met by bigger institutions. So my next goal will be to find support by universities.

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ARCA video journal entry 5

Bogdan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:48:04 -0800