2. Why not send robot rovers?
• US and Russia sent many robots to test various
things re the race to the moon
• But now?
– Not so much
• We know how to build very hardy long range
autonomous rovers
• The moon is easier for rovers
– Close enough to teleoperate and near live view
– Much lower cost.
– We need them to do research and scouting for good
mentions
3. Surveyor
• 1966 – 1968
• Seven robotic missions
– Primary goal was soft-landing experiments
• Impact trajectory with last 3 minutes deceleration
– Five soft land
– Two failed and crashed
• One possibly exploded
• Other failed to decelerate
8. Lunokhod 2
• 1973
• Only operated in lunar day
– Isotope heating and hibernation in lunar night
• Mission
– Astronomical base evaluation, laser ranging, solar
xray observing, measure magnetic fields, and soil
characteristics
• Covered about 24 miles over 6 months
– Done in by the ubiquitous moon dust
21. Scarab
• Lunar Rover Initiative
– Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon
• Drilling (water ice especially) and science rover
• 1 m drill
• Suspension allows laying on ground for drilling
stability
– Navigates steep terrain well
• Laser scanning for night work
22.
23. Lunar Precursor Robotic Program
• Robotic mission preparing for human return to moon
– Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
• Low altitude scans for landing sites, resources, 3D mapping, etc.
– Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)
• Impacted Atlas V upper stage with south pole
– Created 10 km plume for study by science package.
– Analysis yielded much information about amount of water and other
materials at pole.
» Looking for water, hydrocarbons, organics
– Infrared and visible light spectrometers
– Near-infrared cameras, visible light camera
– Visible radiometer
– Total combined cost - $583 million
24. LRO Payload
• CRaTER – Cosmic ray telescope – radiation impact
• DLRE – radiometer experiments for surface emissions
• LAMP – peers into even deeply shadowed craters
• LEND – neutron dectector looking for subsurface ice
• LOLA – Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter
• LROC – Narrow anfle and wide angle cameras providing
more 3D prespective. 70-100 TB of data
• Mini-RF – new communications technologies and RF based
water-ice finders
