This document summarizes a feasibility study for a proposed robotic mission called LEYEV that would broadcast live HD video from the Moon's surface to the public. A survey found the mission concept was exciting to participants and could potentially raise $2.7 billion through crowdfunding. A prototype remote-controlled robot was tested with a 4 second transmission delay, finding 50% of users would be satisfied. The technical feasibility of transmitting HD video from the Moon within bandwidth limitations was also analyzed. The conclusion is that LEYEV is technically feasible and welcomed by the public, though further optimization may be needed and crowdfunding would require a large audience.

1. Cranfield University © 2013
Feasibility Study of a HD-Broadcasted Robotic Mission to the Moon to Revive the
General Interest in Space
G. Marchetauxa
and Dr. J. Kingstonb
a
MSc candidate
b
Supervisor
Space Research Centre, Cranfield University, UK
Abstract
In the infancy of Space tourism, very few people are well off enough to buy their ticket into Space, especially
for a journey to the Moon - yet, as the memory of the first step on the Moon slowly fades out and Mars is still
not within reach yet, many people across the world would savour seeing through the eyes of astronauts on a
lunar mission - whether or not they are already interested in Space. This paper investigates the technical
feasibility of the mission concept LEYEV in which, simply put, a controllable camera is sent to the Moon in
order to share with spectators worldwide what a lunar astronaut sees including: transfer and capture, orbit,
various landmarks from orbit, landing, exploration near those landmarks, and potentially manned missions'
landings from the ground. So as to improve spectators’ involvement in the mission, remote controlling the rover
is also studied, focusing on public appeal through an experiment based on a prototype of a delay-affected
remote-controlled robot which has been designed, built and programmed for this purpose. An another survey
measures test participants’ excitement about the mission, the importance of different mission features (in
preparation for a feature tradeoff analysis), and how much crowdfunding could be expected to make such a
mission possible.
Mission statement
Tailored to share part of what it feels like to be an astronaut on a lunar mission with the public in order to revive
their excitement in Space exploration, the mission concept LEYEV has been defined around a show on the 50th
anniversary of the first step on the Moon: the transfer, the orbits from which lunar landmarks will be observed,
the landing and the beginning of the exploration of LEYEV near Apollo 11 would be broadcasted in HD on TV
and internet. If a manned mission were to occur during LEYEV's lifetime, it could be used as a viewpoint from
the ground. In the meantime, with the video feed being publicly accessible online, HD science exploration and
possibly remote control by any ground-based member of the public would build up the return on investment on
top of potential deliveries to the surface.
Technical feasibility specifications
Building on top of the previous work led at the Carnegie Mellon University on a day and night lunar rover[1],
the concept of LEYEV is technologically feasible. More precisely, after investigation of, among others:
 the power and latency required for an efficient compression of the video; the necessary bitrate for
HDTV;
 the corresponding bandwidth of the communications link using CCSDS's encoding and modulation
recommendations[3];
 the framerate necessary during the ~3day transfer and the corresponding size and writing speed of the
mass memory;
 the communications link duration in orbit for a vertical antenna on the lander; corresponding live video
coverage; time, necessary zoom, and max pointing error to watch the landmarks considered[1]; and
framerate from orbit;
 the landing date's lighting and day of the week (for the public);
 the RTGs with sufficient technology readiness and the corresponding time available for operations for
a given battery (power budget of [1])
 the effect of the position error and the zoom factor on the tracking of a potential manned capsule's
landing;
(Most of the calculations are geometric using Al Kashi’s theorem and angular diameters -the reference
being that of the Moon as seen from Earth-, the remainder -power and link calculations…- is based on [2])

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Figure 1: Extracts of the technical feasibility results;
top left: Datarate savings during the transfer via a variable framerate, top right: Datarate savings in terms of
framerate in orbit, middle left: live video coverage of various landmarks from an equatorial orbit, middle right:
recharge time necessary to recover from a trek, bottom: coverage of a landing as seen from the ground given
364m of positioning accuracy
LEYEV's transfer video can be transmitted along the way thanks to a very low framerate (see fig. 1 top left),
then the capture and the first orbit will require at most 38GB of mass memory (8FPS, see fig.1 top right),
transmitted over 2 to 3 orbits after which live video can start, including before landing 3 to 4min dedicated to all
the landmarks on an equatorial orbit with a 400x zoom (see fig. 1 middle left) and maximum 0.2° of pointing
accuracy. LEYEV can land on the 50th anniversary of the first step on the Moon, broadcast a 1080i60 live video
with a bitrate of 10Mbps transmitted within 14MHz of Ka-band (33MHz with tolerance to equal power
interference), drive for 3.5hours per day (see fig. 1 middle right) using 6kg of battery with 3 of Curiosity’s
MMRTG, and watch the landing of a potential next manned mission's landing as far away as 230km with a 400x
zoom and 360m positioning accuracy (see fig. 1 bottom).

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Market study
General survey and crowdfunding
LEYEV has been described as exciting by 100% of the 33 volunteers who completed a survey on the mission,
85% of them describing it as at least very exciting (see fig. 2 middle left). The measured revivement of interest
in Space missions is only of 18%, however 90% of them were already interested in Space and Science (see fig.
2 top). This has resulted in a high willingness to pay for the mission: for a “perfect” mission in which every
feature is of excellent quality (assuming the user’s satisfaction mirrors the quality of the service, the projected
satisfaction of the user is the sum of the product of each feature importance with its quality) sets the
crowdfunding budget to 19.5£ to 22.5£ using a fixed price (see fig. 2 bottom) or 31£ to 35£ for donations - per
expected spectator, respectively without and with the opportunity to remote control the rover. Multiplied by
even a fourth of the spectators of the first step on the Moon, based on these results the crowdfunding budget
would reach a minimum of 2.7G£, 400M£ more if remote control is implemented since it is nearly as important
as any other feature (except live video itself, see fig. 2 middle right). Extending the survey should result in a
higher revivement indicator and a lower crowdfunding budget but it still represents a good source of funding
should the mission be at stake.
Figure 2: Extracts of the results to LEYEV's general survey;
top: interest in Space and Science, middle left: excitement in LEYEV, middle right: importance of LEYEV’s
features, bottom left: max fixed price funding without remote control, bottom right: max fixed price funding
with remote control
Remote control experimental survey
Remote controlling a rover which is affected by several seconds of delay is something that cannot be described
to participants of a survey if not by means of a prototype. The robot RECS has been designed, built and

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programmed along with its control program with the objective of easing the control using a real time simulator
(see the 2D view at the bottom of fig. 3, in which the rover telemetry avatar catches up with the real time ghost
avatar after a return delay) –though it was also designed to fit upcoming research requiring rover field tests at
Cranfield University–; After a 4 hour public experiment in which 14 people participated, it was revealed that
60% of them would be satisfied with being a mere spectator, 100% with controlling it when affected by 2s of
single delay, and 50% by 4s (see fig. 5 top left). If the latency increases beyond 2s because of a complex video
compressing, a high quality video could be opted for only when looking around while standing still. In addition,
57% think a third person view (top right of fig. 3) is not important (see fig. 5 top right) which would avoid a
second rover or mast deployment mechanisms, and 57% also consider themselves satisfied of controlling only
the camera (see fig. 5 bottom), which would make safeguarding much easier.
Figure 3: User interface of RECS;
Top left: first person view (IP camera), top right: third person view (webcam), bottom left: 2D simulator view,
bottom right: telemetry and control panel – 1500 lines of code
Figure 4: Photography of RECS
– 30 components, mounting frame and power supply custom built

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Figure 5: Extracts of the results to RECS’s survey;
Top left: satisfaction of the users when spectating or for various delays, top right: importance of a third person
view, bottom: satisfaction of only operating the camera
Further work
LEYEV's next step is to execute a thorough tradeoff which, given the mission’s complexity and dependent on
the public, would benefit greatly from an algorithm based on fuzzy logic that sets all the parameters to optimise
the return on investment in function of inputs such as complexity, performance and cost. Some of the inputs
would require some work beforehand, such as a more accurate and more complete survey as well as a 3D
simulation of the mission in order to settle what compression and how much video bitrate is truly necessary for
a good video quality; or a more precise power budget, tightly linked to the demanding locomotion subsystem.
Conclusion
This project has determined that the concept of LEYEV is technically feasible after analysis of identified
systems drivers, but also that it is welcomed and considered exciting by those who responded to the described
surveys – including an experiment on delayed operation of robots using a prototype built for this purpose.
Furthermore, even if the sample may not be representative of the expected public, crowdfunding turns out to be
a tangible source of funding should it become necessary. Finally, if the mission development timeline is too
short or the funding still insufficient, the concept of LEYEV could be transplanted on planned (ideally manned)
missions which can afford the additional power and bandwidth - for example Astrobotic's (the company spin off
from Carnegie Mellon University from which originated the baseline) or even Mars missions (in which the
public has more interest) with some modifications; though it would mean abandoning remote control. As long as
it becomes reality…
LEYEV: “The Moon brought to you live in HD”

6. Cranfield University © 2013
References
[1] Martin C. Martin Andrew B. Mor Eric Rollins Alex Sharf Jack Sil-berman Tom Warren Deepak Bapna
Peter Berkelman Mei Chen, Jesse Easudes John Hancock.. Design of a day/night lunar rover. Carnegie
Mellon University, 1995.
[2] Dr Jenny Kingston Dr Peter Roberts, Space systems engineering + Astrodynamics course material,
Cranfield University, 2012
[3] Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, TM Channel coding profiles + Bandwidth efficient
modulation techniques, 2009-2012
[4] Grégoire Marchetaux, Feasibility Study of a HD-broadcasted Robotic Mission to the Moon for Reviving the
General Interest in Space, MSc thesis report, 2013 – for more details