Following on from the earlier post, this is a video showing some of professor Yoshida's seminar at the White Label Space HQ in the AOES offices last weekend.

The overriding technical challenge of operating a rover near the Moon's equator is the intense, prolonged heat produced by solar radiation and the hot regolith over which the rover travels. All powered equipment inside the robot generates its own heat as well, which must be routed to the radiator for release into space. In the photo below, the team has a key composite part sealed in vacuum to achieve better bonding of the layers. This part, the motor strap, connects the heat-generating 28v brushless motor to other high-conductivity composite straps leading up to the radiator.

The schematic below shows where the motor strap fits into the design of one of the two drive motors, mounted in the "shoulder" of the robot. The motors power chain drives on either side of the robot that connect to the wheels. The rover steers by driving the two sides at different speeds, or reversing one side to turn in place.

News from SYNERGY MOON’s launch provider, Interorbital Systems:
Sandy Antunes chronicles his experience building his own personal satellite (an IOS TubeSat Kit) at:
http://ScientificBlogging.com/satellite_diaries

Saturday 27th February 2010, professor Kazuya Yoshida gave a seminar at the White Label Space Headquarters located at the offices of AOES Group BV in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. In his seminar he explained the technical challenges of lunar rovers and presented the upcoming plans for the White Label Space rover developments currently underway at the Space Robotics Laboratory at Tohoku University in Japan (see recent video post).

Accompanying him on the podium was Dr Andrew Barton, the lead designer for the White Label Space lander, who provided an introduction to latest activities at the White Label Space Headquarters and the team's plans for the rest of 2010 and beyond.

After the presentation, the visitors were treated to a display of mock-ups as well as sample hardware and posters from the team's Partners.

The event was also the first chance to show a prototype of the egress ramp system that enables the Rover to safely drive from the top of the landing platform down onto the surface of the Moon. The egress ramp prototype was built by AOES engineers and was inspired by the ramps used in the successful Lunakhod Moon rover missions by the Soviet Union.

Also on display was hardware from the Wroclaw University of Technology, including a back-up antenna from the ARISS project. Two such antennas were successfully launched in 2008 attached to the Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS).

Scroll down this post to see some more photos of the event.