NASA Rover Was Developed by Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute

PITTSBURGH-Thecool, rocky slopes of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano that is Hawaii'shighest mountain, will serve as a stand-in for the moon as researchersfrom Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, NASA and otherorganizations test a robot designed for lunar prospecting.

Duringthe field experiment, Nov. 1-13, the robot called Scarab will simulatea lunar mission to extract water, hydrogen, oxygen and other compoundsthat could potentially be mined for use by future lunar explorers. Thefour-wheeled robot will trek to different sites, using a Canadian-builtdrill to obtain a one-meter geologic core at each site. Each core willbe chemically analyzed by on-board instruments developed by NASA.

"Peoplewill not return to the moon for prolonged stays unless we can findresources there to help sustain them," said University ProfessorWilliam "Red" Whittaker, director of the Robotics Institute's FieldRobotics Center. "The technology being developed for Scarab will helplocate whatever water or resources might exist on the moon as we seekout the raw materials for a new age of exploration."

Scarabwas designed and built for NASA's Human Robot Systems program byCarnegie Mellon. It serves as a terrestrial testbed for technologiesthat would be used to explore craters at the moon's southern pole,where a robot would operate in perpetual darkness at temperatures ofminus 385 degrees Fahrenheit. The rover features a novel rocker-armsuspension that enables it to negotiate sandy, rock-strewn inclines andto lower its 5 1/2-foot by 3-foot body to the ground for drillingoperations. Scarab weighs 400 kilograms (about 880 pounds) and canoperate on just 100 watts of power.

"Lastyear, we demonstrated Scarab's unique maneuverability and its abilityto navigate autonomously," said David Wettergreen, associate researchprofessor of robotics and project leader. "This year we reconfiguredScarab to accommodate a rock sample analysis payload developed by NASA.Now it is a complete robotic system for exploring the lunar poles andprospecting for resources."

Scarab is outfitted with a drill assembly built by the Northern Centrefor Advanced Technology Inc. (Norcat) in Sudbury, Ontario. The drilltakes hours to cut a one-meter core into a dense layer of weatheredrock and soil, known as regolith. The core is then transferred intoanother Norcat device that pulverizes it, about one foot at a time.

Thecrushed rock and soil drops into the Regolith and Environment Scienceand Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction (RESOLVE) experiment beingdeveloped by NASA's In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) program. InsideRESOLVE's heating chamber, the sample is heated to 900 degrees Celsius(1652 degrees Fahrenheit); gases released by the heat are transportedto a gas chromatograph, an instrument that identifies individualchemicals and their relative abundance, and to absorption beds, each ofwhich measures a particular compound of interest. It takes up to 20hours to analyze an entire one-meter core.

Hawaii, famed for its tropical beaches, may not seem to have much incommon with the moon. But the nearly 14,000-foot summit of Mauna Kea,home to a dozen major telescopes, is often snow-capped during wintermonths. The NASA field test will occur at elevations of approximately9,000 feet, where Scarab is likely to encounter rain and fog anddaytime temperatures of about 40 degrees.

Scarab is funded through NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas,and is managed by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. BothScarab and ISRU's RESOLVE experiment are part of NASA's ExplorationTechnology Development Program, which is managed at NASA's LangleyResearch Center in Hampton, Va.

Listen to podcast interview with David Wettergreen, Associate Research Professor, RI.