NASAs quirky new lunar rover will be the first to cruise the moons south pole

Date:
Sun, 09 Jul 2023 17:00:00 +0000

Description:
Antoine Tardy, VIPER rover egress driver, adjusts the cables that power and send commands to the VIPER test unit as engineers practice its exit/descent from the model Griffin lunar lander at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. NASA/Dominic Hart Four wheels are better than
six for off-roading in craters. The post NASAs quirky new lunar rover will be the first to cruise the moons south pole appeared first on Popular Science .

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Antoine Tardy, VIPER rover egress driver, adjusts the cables that power and send commands to the VIPER test unit as engineers practice its exit/descent from the model Griffin lunar lander at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. NASA/Dominic Hart

Its no simple feat to send a rover to space, land it on a celestial body, and get the wheels rolling. NASA has used all kinds of techniques: The Pathfinder rover landed on Mars in 1997 inside a cluster of airbags, then rolled down
its landing vehicles petals, which bloomed open like a flower, to the dusty surface. Cables attached to a rocket-powered sky crane spacecraft dropped the Perseverance Mars rover to the Red Planets surface in 2021. On the moon, Apollo 15, 16, and 17 astronauts pulled mylar cables to unfold and lower
their buggies from the vehicles compact stowage compartments on lunar
landers.

But NASAs first-ever rover mission to the lunar south pole will use a more familiar method of getting moving on Earths satellite: a pair of ramps. VIPER , which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, will roll down an offramp to touch the lunar soil, or regolith, when it lands on the moon in late 2024.

This is familiar technology in an unforgiving location. We all know how to work with ramps, and we just need to optimize it for the environment were going to be in, says NASAs VIPER program manager Daniel Andrews .

A VIPER test vehicle recently descended down a pair of metal ramps at NASAs Ames Research Center in California, as seen in the agencys recently published photos , with one beam for each set of the rovers wheels. Because the terrain where VIPER will landthe edge of the massive Nobile Crater is expected to be rough, the engineering team has been testing VIPERs ability to descend the ramps at extreme angles. They have altered the steepness, as measured from
the lander VIPER will descend from, and differences in elevation between the ramp for each wheel.

We have two ramps, not just for the left and right wheels, but a ramp set
that goes out the back too, Andrews says. So we actually get our pick of the litter, which one looks most safe and best to navigate as were at that moment where we have to roll off the lander.

[Related: The next generation of lunar rovers might move like flying saucers ]

VIPER is a scientific successor to NASAs Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS mission , which in 2009 confirmed the presence of water ice on the lunar south pole.

It completely rewrote the books on the moon with respect to water, says Andrews, who also worked on the LCROSS mission. That really started the moon rush, commercially, and by state actors like NASA and other space agencies.

The ice, if abundant, could be mined to create rocket propellant. It could also provide water for other purposes at long-term lunar habitats , which
NASA plans to construct in the late 2020s as part of the Artemis moon program .

But LCROSS only confirmed that ice was definitely present in a single crater at the moonssouth pole. VIPER, a mobile rover, will probe the distribution of water ice in greater detail. Drilling beneath the lunar surface is one task. Another is to move into steep, permanently shadowed regionsentering craters that, due to their sharp geometry, and the low angle of the sun at the lunar poles, have not seen sunlight in billions of years.

The tests demonstrate the rover can navigate a 15-degree slope with
easeenough to explore these hidden dark spots, avoiding the need to make a machine designed for trickier descents. We think theres plenty of scientifically relevant opportunities, without having to make a superheroic rover that can do crazy things, Andrews says.

Developed by NASA Ames and Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, VIPER is a square golf-cart-sized vehicle about 5 feet long and wide, and about 8 feet high. Unlike all of NASAs Mars rovers, VIPER has four wheels, not six.

A problem with six wheels is it creates kind of the equivalent of a track,
and so youre forced to drive in a certain way, Andrews says. VIPERs four wheels are entirely independent from each other. Not only can they roll in
any direction, they can be turned out, using the rovers shoulder-like joints to crawl out of the soft regolith of the kind scientists believe exists in permanently shadowed moon craters. The wheels themselves are very similar to those on the Mars rovers, but with more paddle-like treads, known as
grousers, to carry the robot through fluffy regolith.

The metaphor I like to use is we have the ability to dip a toe into the [permanently shadowed region], Andrews says. If we find were surprised or
dont like what were finding, we have the ability to lift that toe out, roll away on three wheels, and then put it back down.

But VIPER wont travel very far at all if it cant get down the ramp from its lander, which is why Andrews and his team have been spending a lot of time testing that procedure. At first, the wheels would skid, just momentarily, as the VIPER test vehicle moved down the ramps.

We also found we could drive up and over the walls of the rampway, Andrews says. Thats probably not desirable.

[Related on PopSci+: How Russias war in Ukraine almost derailed Europes Mars rover ]

Together with Astrobotic, Andrews and his team have altered the ramps, and they now include specialized etchings down their lengths. The rover can
detect this pattern along the rampway, using cameras in its wheel wells. By just looking down there, the robot knows where it is, he says. Thats a new touch.

Andrews is sure VIPER will be ready for deployment in 2024, however many tweaks are necessary. After all, this method is less complicated than a sky crane, he notes: Ramps are pretty tried and true.

The post NASAs quirky new lunar rover will be the first to cruise the moons south pole appeared first on Popular Science . Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.



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Link to news story:
https://www.popsci.com/science/nasa-viper-moon-rover-test/


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