Hypography X Prize Entry

[TheBigDog]

OK, Hypographers! The amount of brain power that comes to this playground is fantastic, and I thought that this might be an opportunity to collaborate as a team on a very fun idea. Google and The X Prize Foundation have announced a new competition, a $20,000,000 prize for the first team to land a craft on the moon and return some very specific data (functioning rover with camera's and broadcast capability). This thread is dedicated to collaborating on exactly how that could be achieved. All aspects of the project will be considered and discussed. If needed we will break into sub teams such as launch, landing, rover, broadcast, navigation, etc.

 

First off, here is a link to the site that details the contest...

 

Welcome | X PRIZE Foundation

 

This should be a great deal of fun!

 

Bill

[Mercedes Benzene]

And who exactly is funding this effort for us?:hyper:

[TheBigDog]

And who exactly is funding this effort for us?:hyper:

Believe it or not, I think funding is the least of our concerns. It is probably the most established of the engineering challenges in the project.

 

I suggest that we work backward from a perspective of pure Newtonian mechanics. We design a rover that can achieve the goals for a landed vehicle. We design the method of landing it safely on the moon. We calculate the boost requirements for getting the landing mechanism and lander to the moon. We then design the booster to fill that requirement.

 

The rover will end up being just a couple of Kilos. Because it will be sending pictures of itself back to earth that will be come historic the value of advertising space on the rover and the lander is extraordinary. That is where the funding come from, for letting corporations pay to associate themselves with the dream. Most of the lander should be built from off the shelf parts, but in the form of corporate sponsorships to help pay for it. But I don't want to go off on a tangent of sponsorships. First we need to tackle the basic engineering.

 

1. We need a capable rover
   
2. We need a way of soft landing it on the moon
   

Once we have those numbers we can begin engineering how we get it to the moon. Nothing that we do will be in secret. The whole project will be run on these pages. All members are welcome to participate.

 

Who would like to be on the lander design team? Here is what has been published so far about the lander requirements...

A $20 million Grand Prize will be awarded to the team that can soft land a craft on the Moon that roams for at least 500 meters and transmits a Mooncast back to Earth. The Grand Prize is $20M until December 31st 2012

 

. . .

 

The Mooncast consists of digital data that must be collected and transmitted to the Earth composed of the following:

• High resolution 360º panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the Moon;

• Self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon;

• Near-real time videos showing the craft’s journey along the lunar surface;

• High Definition (HD) video;

• Transmission of a cached set of data, loaded on the craft before launch (e.g. first email from the Moon).

Teams will be required to send a Mooncast detailing their arrival on the lunar surface, and a second Mooncast that provides imagery and video of their journey roaming the lunar surface. All told, the Mooncasts will represent approximately a Gigabyte of stunning content returned to the Earth.

 

. . .

 

An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days).

Worst case is we have a compelling hobby until the end of 2012. So, who is in with me?

 

Bill

[Mercedes Benzene]

I'm in.

When I first read this article a couple days ago, I thought it would be really cool to work on that type of project, but I had no one to do it with.

Now I do!:hyper:

[Jay-qu]

Oh my dog.. do you have any doubt that I would be in all the way with you BD :hyper:

 

Possibly the coolest competition around!

 

Im not sure what team Im best suited to yet.

 

I think we should have a forum for this if we are going to be serious about it.

[Turtle]

...I suggest that we work backward from a perspective of pure Newtonian mechanics. We design a rover that can achieve the goals for a landed vehicle. We design the method of landing it safely on the moon. We calculate the boost requirements for getting the landing mechanism and lander to the moon. We then design the booster to fill that requirement.

 

The rover will end up being just a couple of Kilos. Because it will be sending pictures of itself back to earth that will be come historic the value of advertising space on the rover and the lander is extraordinary. ...Bill

 

OK I'll help. :hyper: 2 kilos eh? i have one idea already to keep weight down and still get a self portrait. Rather than try to extend the camera, we just set a mirror down, drive away, and turn to take the pic. :camera:

 

wow...what a daunting task. :hihi: T-minus 5 years and counting‽ :)

[TheBigDog]

OK I'll help. 2 kilos eh? i have one idea already to keep weight down and still get a self portrait. Rather than try to extend the camera, we just set a mirror down, drive away, and turn to take the pic. :camera:

 

wow...what a daunting task. :hihi: T-minus 5 years and counting‽

Welcome aboard, Turtle! I had another thought and that was to actually land multiple rovers. If you are sending to the moon, you might as well have some redundancy. Imagine having half a dozen tiny rovers that are clients to the lander. It has solar cells and is capable of recharging the little buggers. Maybe even doing part swaps and repairs. They dock until charged, then go and execute a mission and return. And they would be like tiny RC cars. Very simple. All the computing power would be on the lander itself, like a mother ship.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

Oh my dog.. do you have any doubt that I would be in all the way with you BD

 

Possibly the coolest competition around!

 

Im not sure what team Im best suited to yet.

 

I think we should have a forum for this if we are going to be serious about it.

Where would this mission be without our actual, factual, astrophysics student? Welcome aboard, JQ.

 

Bill

[TheBigDog]

I'm in.

When I first read this article a couple days ago, I thought it would be really cool to work on that type of project, but I had no one to do it with.

Now I do!

And of course, our chemistry expert!. Welcome aboard, MB. This is going to more fun that work and school combined!

 

Bill

[Jay-qu]

Where would this mission be without our actual, factual, astrophysics student? Welcome aboard, JQ.

 

Bill

By the time this project is half done, I wont be a student any more, Ill be a fully fledged astro-geek :camera:

 

multiple rovers you think.. could be a good way to leverage some funding - rent out control of rovers to groups of scientists around the world and keep one for our selves

[CraigD]

This sounds like great fun, and lots of discussion stuff.

If needed we will break into sub teams such as launch, landing, rover, broadcast, navigation, etc.

An important “etcetera” is, I think, finance and accounting. US$20,000,000 – 25,000,000 isn’t a lot of money by any aerospace standards, and the “runner up” prize of $5,000,000 even less, so you’ve gotta have a solid base of high-risk investment, advertisers or otherwise. I expect the practical details of this can be as or more complicated than the project’s rocket science.

 

Until the official rules are actually published, replacing the current competition guidlines, it’s an accurate high-level picture of the challenge, involves some guesswork. I’m guessing, however, that the primary requirement - “To win the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a team must successfully land a privately funded craft on the lunar surface and survive long enough…” – means only that the team must solve only the Earth-Moon trip, landing, and surface operations problems. I see nothing in the guidelines, and suspect there will be nothing in the final rules, prohibiting the use of a proven commercial launch system to reach Earth orbit. Commercial cost to LEO are from $5,000 - $40,000 /kg, so getting 1000 kg of vehicle – 1/45th of an Apollo CSM and LEM, as a comparison - into orbit on budget appears feasible.

 

That out of the way, we can get creative. Getting the most payload from an economic Earth orbit to a soft landing on the Moon with the least initial mass involves a lot of very different engineering approaches…

 

All the other problems strike me as solvable through good COTS shopping and integration. For example, low-cost Doppler radar units can determine ground speed to within .05 m/s, sufficient to soft-land a lunar lander, while spread-spectrum radio should allow control and communication with a fraction of the signal strength required in the 1960s and 70s.

 

How well COTS hardware tolerates vacuum and low temperature, and how to warm and harden it as necessary, seems one of the major, critical challenges of such an approach. A good vacuum chamber for testing will be essential.

[Jay-qu]

While it is imperitive that you go to lengths to make this mission as cost effective as possible I dont think they want you to do it with under $20mill. It would be a high risk venture for some companies, but others might be willing to throw a few million your way to get a sticker on your rocket - the only time its going to be seen is when its on Earth anyway, so not to much risk if it explodes

[Theory5]

Hey, is it to late to join?

I would Like to be part of vehicle design.

[Jay-qu]

It hasnt even started to begin mate - talk is underway, things are happening, its exciting.

 

The sky is no limit here!

[Turtle]

So on the multiple rover idea, do we want to land a single lander and then have them all head out, or do we pop open our entry vehicle ala MERV and scatter them over a wider area?

 

The air-bag landing is a proven technology; shall we use it?

 

Just talk. That's a wrap. :eek: :)

 

PS

How well COTS hardware tolerates vacuum and low temperature, and how to warm and harden it as necessary, seems one of the major, critical challenges of such an approach. A good vacuum chamber for testing will be essential.

 

I chewed on this a bit. Not only do we need to be able to warm things, we neeble to cool things as well. What about instead of vacuum proofing, we put everything in a sealed low pressure air environment? Harden against radiation as required. :) :hihi:

[Mercedes Benzene]

So on the multiple rover idea, do we want to land a single lander and then have them all head out, or do we pop open our entry vehicle ala MERV and scatter them over a wider area?

 

The air-bag landing is a proven technology; shall we use it?

 

Just talk. That's a wrap.

 

PS

 

I think an airbag landing would be easiest to execute. That way, everything stays together until we land successfully. :)

[Jay-qu]

I think an airbag landing would be easiest to execute. That way, everything stays together until we land successfully. :)

I dont think so, without any means of slowing the lander down it would hit at 200m/s (at best) - on mars the landers had parachutes, which are ineffective on the moon without an atmosphere!

 

Also one of the competition guidelines is that the probe must be soft landed - so we are already looking at a more complex design..

 

To answer your question tutle, the above been the case if we want multiple rovers it would be much to expensive and complicated to scatter them - as cool as that would be!

 

J