Lunar Tete-A-Tete With TeamIndus

  • Oct 28, 2016
  • Views : 8682
  • 3 min read

  • bookmark

We have a little chat with the only team representing India at the Google Lunar XPRIZE

Lunar Tete-A-Tete With TeamIndus

The Google Lunar XPRIZE aka the ‘New Space Race’, is a worldwide competition created with the aim of developing new-age and low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The competition sees teams from all over the world compete to see their brainchild walk, or rather, drive on the moon. To win the Google Lunar XPRIZE, a privately funded team must successfully place a robot on the moon’s surface that travels for at least 500 meters and transmits high-definition videos and images back to earth.

The reward? Well, apart from the pride of having their rover actually traverse the lunar surface, the winning team gets a grand prize of $30 million!

Interesting, yes, but what makes it better is that India has a team participating in the competition. Based out of Jakkur, Bangalore, TeamIndus is the only team representing India at this global stage and has developed an all aluminium, four wheel drive, all terrain rover, codenamed ‘ECA’. Tipping the scales at just 10kg, ECA is powered by solar energy and will record data through multiple cameras, including those from French space agency CNES.

While getting the rover to the moon is, quite literally, rocket science, getting it to travel on the moon poses a daunting challenge in itself. The lunar regolith (soil) is extremely fine and loose, making it difficult to find traction and thus needs wheels that are up for the challenge. Of course, to work around it, TeamIndus has designed wheels that are capable of gliding over the terrain. With aluminum hubs and a steel meshed surface that features cross running blades, these wheels ensure minimal sinkage. Each wheel is powered by 15-watt brushless DC electric motors, giving ECA the ability to climb over rocks and craters as large as the wheels.

We had a little chat with Karan Vaish, TeamIndus’ systems engineer (Rover), who gave us further insight into the lunar rover and its wheels.

Lunar Tete-A-Tete With TeamIndus

What are the challenges involved in developing a wheel for the lunar surface?

First of the major challenges involved in developing a wheel for the lunar surface, is the surface itself. It is extremely dry and hence has very low cohesion. The extremely low gravity of the moon further reduces the compaction of the soil that the wheels can develop, hence reducing the shear strength of the layers underneath. This makes slippage a very real and a high probability threat. One can comprehend this as trying to drive on a sandy beach but only 10 times more difficult. 

How do you test the wheel's competency, given the completely different environment offered on the moon? Could you explain how you simulate the lunar conditions?

At our facility in Jakkur, we have built a Lunar test bed with processed soil to achieve properties similar to the Lunar regolith. We attached a large Helium balloon to all our testing and prototyping models in order to reduce the ground pressure as a virtue of the lunar gravity. The terrain could further be altered to test the rover through various slopes and obstacles which it may indeed encounter. 

How do you source the materials needed to build the wheel? Any problems you face on this front?

The wheels are built from high strength grades of Aluminum and the procurement is not a challenge.

How much does each wheel cost? Any facet about India that enables a costing advantage?

Manufacturing in India is generally cheaper than around the world. Each wheel costs us somewhere in 30s of thousands.

The lunar rover has to travel 500m. What is the maximum distance the wheel can be used for?

The Lunar rover can travel up to 5 times the target set by the competition’s problem statement.

ECA will travel in a spacecraft housed inside the nosecone of ISRO’s PSLV. The launch has been scheduled for late 2017, so it’s time to mark that calendar!

See what our community has to say! NEW

India's largest automotive community

Explore Now
comminity image
×
Recently Visited
Select Category