3 ms·

Astrobotic's CubeRover program awarded $2M NASA contract

27 points by apsec112 6y ago

johnwalkr 6y ago
I'm a small rover guy so I am partial to this announcement but before and after this announcement Astrobotic has 2 larger rover-related contracts with NASA: Astrobotic Awarded $5.6 Million Nasa Contract To Deliver Autonomous Moon Rover[1] Astrobotic Awarded $199.5 Million Contract To Deliver Nasa Moon Rover[2] Such a small rover is a challenge due to the thermal environment on the moon. By avoiding the lunar night, one can avoid the approximately -150C surface temperature (depending on location). But you can still have a temperature varying from -80C to 100C or more for a mission lasting 10 days. That's skipping the first and last 2 days of one lunar daytime, which is of course about 14 earth-days long, and is typical for a mission proposal. A short mission duration lets you arguably get away from using rad-hard components and a lot of redundancy. There's about 10 lunar rovers planned within the next few years that I know of (and I mean mature designs such as this one, not the other dozens of perennial projects that come and go). It's going to be interesting to see the result of this kind of small rover which could potentially fly multiple rovers once a year vs the more "traditional" ~100kg, 10 year space agency project which is much more capable. My bet is on iterating a 2-10kg rover 10 times. Note: there is a John Walker at Astrobotic, but I am a different John Walker working at different rover company. [1] https://www.astrobotic.com/2019/7/1/astrobotic-awarded-5-6-million-nasa-contract-to-deliver-autonomous-moon-rover https://www.astrobotic.com/2019/7/1/astrobotic-awarded-5-6-m... [2] https://www.astrobotic.com/2020/6/11/astrobotic-awarded-199-5-million-contract-to-deliver-nasa-moon-rover https://www.astrobotic.com/2020/6/11/astrobotic-awarded-199-...
anm89 6y ago
Astrobotic builds rovers and lunar landers in an unsassuming building in a crowded urban area full of bars and restaurants in my city of Pittsburgh. I won a hackacthon years ago and got to tour their facilities as a prize and my mind was totally blown that I was just walking past this everyday and had no idea it was there. That was really inspiring to me in some weird way.

27 points by apsec112 6y ago

I'm a small rover guy so I am partial to this announcement but before and after this announcement Astrobotic has 2 larger rover-related contracts with NASA: Astrobotic Awarded $5.6 Million Nasa Contract To Deliver Autonomous Moon Rover[1] Astrobotic Awarded $199.5 Million Contract To Deliver Nasa Moon Rover[2] Such a small rover is a challenge due to the thermal environment on the moon. By avoiding the lunar night, one can avoid the approximately -150C surface temperature (depending on location). But you can still have a temperature varying from -80C to 100C or more for a mission lasting 10 days. That's skipping the first and last 2 days of one lunar daytime, which is of course about 14 earth-days long, and is typical for a mission proposal. A short mission duration lets you arguably get away from using rad-hard components and a lot of redundancy. There's about 10 lunar rovers planned within the next few years that I know of (and I mean mature designs such as this one, not the other dozens of perennial projects that come and go). It's going to be interesting to see the result of this kind of small rover which could potentially fly multiple rovers once a year vs the more "traditional" ~100kg, 10 year space agency project which is much more capable. My bet is on iterating a 2-10kg rover 10 times. Note: there is a John Walker at Astrobotic, but I am a different John Walker working at different rover company. [1] https://www.astrobotic.com/2019/7/1/astrobotic-awarded-5-6-million-nasa-contract-to-deliver-autonomous-moon-rover https://www.astrobotic.com/2019/7/1/astrobotic-awarded-5-6-m... [2] https://www.astrobotic.com/2020/6/11/astrobotic-awarded-199-5-million-contract-to-deliver-nasa-moon-rover https://www.astrobotic.com/2020/6/11/astrobotic-awarded-199-...

anm89 6y ago

Astrobotic builds rovers and lunar landers in an unsassuming building in a crowded urban area full of bars and restaurants in my city of Pittsburgh. I won a hackacthon years ago and got to tour their facilities as a prize and my mind was totally blown that I was just walking past this everyday and had no idea it was there. That was really inspiring to me in some weird way.