Digging on the Moon is a hard job for a robot. It has to be able to collect and move lunar soil, or regolith, without dropping any or kicking up Moon dust around the operation. NASA is asking the public to help design a new bucket drum, the portion of the robot that captures the regolith and keeps it from falling out. The regolith can then be transported to a designated location where reverse rotation of the drum allows it to fall back out. At the end of the competition, the design entries will be judged on a set of criteria, including specific fill ratio, width of the scoops, bucket drum mass, diameter and length, and volume of regolith captured.
Leoben student team takes part in NASA Challenge
30. April 2020
A team of mechanical engineering students from the Montanuniversität Leoben is taking part in a worldwide NASA challenge. The task was to design a mining drum for robot mining on the moon.