Moon race 2.0? Count Russia in
Published 24 November, 2009, 13:52
Edited 25 November, 2009, 17:26
Despite late start, a Russian team aiming to become the first private company to deliver a working rover on the Moon is full of optimism. Team Selenokhod joins a competition with a $20 million prize at stake.
The Lunar X Prize is one of several international competitions with the goal of making breakthroughs in applied sciences. Participants, who can only be private companies, are to design, construct, and field test a lunar rover, to collect the prize sponsored by Google.
The first one to build a vehicle, which can travel at least 500 meters on the Moon’s surface and transmit HD video and photos to Earth by the end of 2012, will be awarded $20 million. The second team to do so will receive $5 million, while another $5 million are allocated as bonuses for extra achievements, like surviving the lunar night or finding water.
At the moment 21 teams from across the world are in the lunar race. Selenokhod, the first and only Russian team in the competition, made their media debut last weekend. The name was derived from Greek Moon goddess Selene, and plays on the name of the soviet unmanned lunar vehicles, the Lunokhod program
Late start, big hope
The 12-strong Selenokhod team joined the Lunar X Prize competition in September this year, more than a year-and-a-half after the initial ten participants were registered. Despite the late start, team members are optimistic about their chances to beat competitors from the United States, Europe, China, India, and other parts of the world.
Early concept art of the transfer module and lunar lander
with a rover onboard. The team designers focus on the rover
itself and will outsource other parts of the mission to firms
with experience in the field.
The Russian team has decided to focus on the rover and outsource its delivery to the Moon. The prime candidate to blast the payload off into the Earth orbit is the joint Russian-Ukrainian rocket “Dnepr” – a civilian version of the SS-18 Satan ICBM, available for commercial launches. Contractors to build the lander and the transfer module, which will deliver the lander and two rovers onboard to the moon, and are yet to be decided upon.
Designs of moon-faring robots in the competition are many, with some unconventional ones including a mini-rocket to fly above the surface, a diwheel vehicle (or dicycle) bracketing the main hull of the rover, and a modular train. Selenokhod uses a more conventional scheme deriving from soviet Moon exploration program of the 1970s.
Classic design, minimalist approach
The Selenokhod rover is a small 30cm-long platform with four independent wheels and a mast carrying three HD cameras and an omnidirectional radio antenna. It has a small weight budget of just 5 kg to minimize delivery cost, so designers will fit only must-have components to it.
With its tiny size and control via a Playstation gamepad,
Selenokhod prototype looks like a toy. But even this model
took serious calculations and high tech tinkering to build.
The team used it to test chassis and evaluate thermal balance
as well as for presentations.
The operator on Earth will use the same visual feedback to track the rover and take direct control to traverse most difficult sections. Controlling the rover directly all the time is not an option due to the 2.5 second lag in transmission between the Moon and Earth. The planned scheme is meant to save some time and boost the rover’s overall speed a little.
Two rovers will be on a mission to the Moon, with one serving as a back-up vehicle and a radio relay if the need arises. The team plans to meet competition’s requirements during the Moon day, which is 14 Earth days long, and then try to survive the night. The plan is to move rovers back to the lander before the dark and cold come and put them into hibernation. Another option is to use components resistant to low-temperatures rather than keeping the robots warm on the lander.
In addition to delivering the rovers, the lander module will provide communication with Earth.
Media attention presumed
Selenokhod’s elder cousin, the Lunokhod-3, was the last
in the series of soviet Moon rovers. Unlike the first two
Lunokhods, the third one was never sent on a mission and is
now exhibited in the museum of the NPO Lavochkin, where all
of them were built.
Choosing the landing site is a challenge in itself for all teams, and technical convenience will have to balance against media appeal. One obvious attractive spot is the Sea of Tranquility, the place of first human landing on Moon. Another is the eastern part of the Sea of Serenity, where both American Apollo 17 and Soviet Luna-21 missions landed just hundreds of meters apart. In addition to thrilling visuals, the spots would win a team bonus for finding human artifacts on the Moon.
Publicity is one of the prime points in the Lunar X Prize. The competition is meant to spur interest in space exploration and show that it does not need to involve billions in spending of the national budget.
Participating teams take inspiration in the example of Elon Musk, founder of the SpaceX, which created the world’s first privately developed low orbit launch vehicle, the Falcon 1. The firm conveniently offers a discount to participants of the competition if they opt for their rocket.
Vladimir Kremlev for RT. Click to Enlarge.
But the prize money and sponsor contracts are not the only commercial incentives for the teams. There is an obvious trend towards a shift of space exploration into the private sector. NASA sees the use of private contractors as a strategic direction for some of its programs, like the delivery of payloads to the International Space Station. If the plan proves successful, other national space agencies may follow that way too.
Regardless of the outcome, companies with past experience will have an advantage in the emerging multibillion markets, so even those unsuccessful in the Lunar X Prize will be ahead of future competition due to their efforts. At least that is what the Selenokhod team say, promising to keep the project afloat, even if some other team scores the prize first.
And of course there is the matter of prestige too. For Russian space specialists, winning the private lunar race after losing the state-funded one would be a matter of national pride. Team engineers are adamant that the Selenokhod project is technically feasible. The only obstacle is getting funding for it.
Alexandre Antonov, RT
Read also: Russian space tech surges forward
discuss it
