Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR)

Abstract

Abstract-Regolith is abundant on extra-terrestrial surfacesand is the source of many resources such as oxygen, hydrogen, titanium, aluminum, iron, silica and other valuable materials, which can be used to make rocket propellant, consumables for life support, radiation protection barrier shields, landing pads, blast protection berms, roads, habitats and other structures and devices. Recent data from the Moon also indicates that there are substantial deposits of water ice in permanently shadowed crater regions and possibly under an over burden of regolith. The key to being able to use this regolith and acquire the resources, is being able to manipulate it with robotic excavation and hauling machinery that can survive and operate in these very extreme extra-terrestrial surface environments.In addition, the reduced gravity on the Moon, Mars, comets and asteroids poses a significant challenge in that the necessary reaction force for digging cannot be provided by the robot's weight as is typically done on Earth. Space transportation is expensive and limited in capacity, so small, lightweight payloads are desirable, which means large traditional excavation machines are not a viable option.A novel, compact and lightweight excavation robot prototype for manipulating, excavating, acquiring, hauling and dumping regolith on extra-terrestrial surfaces has been developed and tested. Lessons learned and test results will be presented including digging in a variety of lunar regolith simulant conditions including frozen regolith mixed with water ice

Is a Linear or a Walkabout Protocol More Efficient When Using a Rover to Choose Biologically Relevant Samples in a Small Region of Interest?

“…A common approach used to assess the efficacy of various methods of remote geological exploration and sampling is to study a terrestrial site that is analogous to the pertinent characteristics of the target extraterrestrial site, using rovers, communication systems, and other equipment similar to that used in remote exploration (Greeley et al, 1994;Whittaker et al, 1997;Arvidson et al, 2000;Stoker et al, 2001Stoker et al, , 2002Lee et al, 2007;Fong et al, 2010;Eppler et al, 2013;Graham et al, 2015;Lim et al, 2018;Osinski et al, 2019). Although this method has shown success when the goal is to test technology (e.g., Zacny et al, 2011;Mueller et al, 2013;Sanders and Larson, 2015), it has proven more difficult when testing the decision-making process of conducting science remotely. This difficulty stems from the dependence on the use of technology that, if not performing nominally, causes breaks in the science decision-making process that compromise test fidelity for science operations (Cohen, 2012;Eppler et al, 2013;Graham et al, 2015;Yingst et al, 2015).…”

An ISRU propellant production system for a fully fueled Mars Ascent Vehicle

“…For the excavation subsystem, the RASSOR rover 5 was chosen. Currently in development at Kennedy Space Center, this is a small rover (~66 kg) that uses twin bucket drums to excavate ~80 kg of regolith.…”

Space development and space science together, an historic opportunity

“…A significant fraction of the space development community is working on technologies and business plans related to the cis-lunar water economy. NASA, with a view to buying propellant, is funding businesses and academia to develop the technologies [181][182][183]; they are also developing such technologies in-house [23,[184][185][186]. NASA's annual Robotic Mining Competition [187] offers incentive points for robots that dig deeper into the regolith, simulating the process of acquiring lunar or Martian water from beneath a desiccated overburden, thereby crowdsourcing the development of digging techniques.…”