Innovation

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology Inc. has entered its second lunar competition with a moon-dirt moving robot designed to help develop a future lunar outpost for NASA.

The NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge will take place on Oct. 17-18 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The droid that digs and dumps the most simulated lunar grit under moon-like conditions will receive the $500,000 prize.

The contest was held last year but no one succeeded in meeting the minimum requirements. Astrobotic did not enter, says David Gump, president, but he believes it will handily take the purse this year.
 
The competition is a preliminary step in Astrobotic’s larger plan to win the Google Lunar X Prize. Led by Carnegie Mellon’s Red Whittaker, Astrobotic hopes to land a lunar robot on the moon, a rolling television studio that will transmit high-def video of the Apollo 11 site back to earth. The launch is planned for May 2011. (For the Pop City story, click here.)

The company is working on a deal with Lockheed Martin to develop a booster  for the launch.  Formed in 2007, Astrobotic is positioning itself to be a robotic supplier of labor for research and development of the lunar frontier.  The firm has secured lunar contracts from NASA and two commercial firms to date.

NASA plans to locate a lunar base on the moon by 2024. Understanding how machinery and materials will perform in the lunar atmosphere is key to mitigating the risks of early missions. Gump believes this early work is the beginning of greater things to come.

“Can we prove there’s water ice at the polar craters? If so, it means we can live off the land,” he says. “We can begin using the frontier to reduce costs, make exploration less expensive and perhaps use it as a fueling station for ships moving out to Mars and beyond.”

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Writer: Debra Diamond Smit
Source: David Gump, Astrobotic Technology Inc.

Image courtesy Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology Inc.