Icebreaker: A Lunar South Pole Exploring Robot
Abstract
Icebreaker is a robot design capable of finding ice at the Lunar South Pole. The goals of its mission are to confirm the presence of ice and map its local distribution, determine composition of the ice, determine the existence and nature of stratigraphy and finally to measure the composition of ice to a depth of one meter below the surface. To do this, Icebreaker will visit at least two cold traps and take ten samples from each during a two week period during which communications with Earth are present. Due to mass and volume constraints in the Delta II 7925H rocket fairing, Icebreaker will be a combined lander/rover vehicle. This class of vehicles combines the functions of a traditional landing craft and rover into one vehicle. Thruster and fuel tanks are an integral part of Icebreaker and allow it to touchdown on its wheels with very little energy and no disposable shock absorbing structure. Thus Icebreaker will land on the Moon and then drive off in its quest for volatiles. This report was written as part of the Mobile Robot Design class of spring 1997.
BibTeX
@techreport{Deans-1997-14413,author = {Matthew Deans and Gregory Fries and Keith Lay and Benjamin Shamah and Alex Foessel and Diana LaBelle and Stewart Moorehead and Kimberly Shillcutt},
title = {Icebreaker: A Lunar South Pole Exploring Robot},
year = {1997},
month = {June},
institute = {Carnegie Mellon University},
address = {Pittsburgh, PA},
number = {CMU-RI-TR-97-22},
}