Turtle-Like “ATHLETE” Carries Permanent Lunar Home on Back
In late 2008, NASA will be testing a turtle-like robotic vehicle in a southwestern United Staes desert location, including space-suited individuals and the ATHLETIC robots moving mock lunar habitats across the surface of the desert approximately 500 kilometres.
ATHLETIC stands for NASA’s “All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer”, originally part of NASA’s plan to be part of a lunar base at a fixed location on the Moon, once the returning astronauts will be there in 2020. But ATHLETIC will change the fixed location plans, allowing the astronauts to move around with the habitat on the robot’s back to explore more areas. With plans for the 15-ton habitat to be mounted on ATHLETE before leaving Earth, future plans would be already solved to lift it off during launch, with a cargo area that will possibly sit up to 6 metres off the ground while still setting it down at a chosen location in one big step.
Considered quite sturdy and extremely agile, “If we get into ankle-deep dust, we’ll lock the wheels, use them as feet, and just tiptoe out, effectively. ATHLETE’s wheel-tipped legs are so long, it just steps right off and carries the payload anywhere you want,” says JPL’s Brian Wilcox, who heads the ATHLETE project. Powering the robot would be the habitat’s solar arrays, also storing power in fuel cells so the robot could travel from place to place, squatting down to bring the habitat door close enough for the astronauts to get in and out without any trouble. The legs, which are its strong advantage in addition to its light weight, have special mounts on them, which allow the robot to use various tools to grab onto tools, drill into the ground, scoop up soil, or do other tasks. Additionally, the legs can be used as arms to lift heavy objects.
While in driving mode, the ATHLETE can handle pretty difficult terrain, always keeping itself level by extending some legs and contracting others. With small wheels, motors and gears, it is 25% lighter than a non-walking vehicle capable of traversing the same terrain would be. Running on astronaut control or even autonomously with special software, ground controllers on Earth can also run the robot as radio signals can make a round trip between Earth and the Moon on approximately 2.5 seconds, as the robot moves only 10 kilometres per hour—fairly slow.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 2:04 am and is filed under Mission Objectives, Space Agency News, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
