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UBC Engineering Students Unveil Moon Dust-Shoveling Robot
Vancouver, Canada (SPX) Oct 12, 2009 A robot designed by UBC students will be shoveling moon dust at an international robotics competition next week, vying for a $500,000 prize and the opportunity to contribute to NASA's future space exploration projects. The UBC team has created a robotic machine that can excavate simulated lunar soil (regolith). Excavating regolith will be an important part of any construction project or processing of natural resources on the Moon. The UBC TREAD robot team will compete in the NASA Regolith Excavator Centennial Challenge at Ames Research Air Force Base in Mountain View, California, on Oct. 17. During the NASA competition, robots will be tested in box containing eight tons of simulated lunar regolith that is about four meters square and about one-half meter deep. In order to qualify for a prize, a robot must dig up and then dump at least 150 kg of regolith into a container in 30 minutes. The NASA challenge is designed to drive progress in aerospace technology of value to NASA's missions; encourage the participation of independent teams, individual inventors, student groups and private companies of all sizes in aerospace research and development; and find the most innovative solutions Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links See the UBC robot in action NASA Regolith Excavator Centennial Challenge University of British Columbia Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com Lunar Dreams and more
Microwaving Water From MoondustHuntsville AL (SPX) Oct 08, 2009 NASA is figuring out how to make water from moondust. Sounds like magic? "No magic--" says Ed Ethridge of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center "-- just microwaves. We're showing how microwaves can extract water from moondust by heating it from the inside out." The recent discovery of water on the Moon's surface has inspired researchers like Ethridge to rev up the development of technologies ... read more |
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