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Abstract

Scarab is a demonstration of a lunar rover design to explore polar cold traps for water ice as a potential resource. The envisioned mission scenario lands the rover on the floor of a permanently shadowed crater. The radioisotope powered rover then traverses kilometers in darkness, stopping to drill into the near subsurface and take data. The vehicle design employs a passive kinematic suspension with an active adjustability to lower for drilling and aid in driving. Scarab was designed and built in 2007 and is currently in lab and field testing and further development.

Keywords

lunar rover polar exploration scarab

Notes

Sponsor: NASA

Grant ID: NNX08AJ99G

Associated Center(s) / Consortia: Space Robotics Initiative and Field Robotics Center

Associated Project(s): Lunar Rover Navigation, Lunar Rover Initiative, Lunar Ice Discovery Initiative, Lunar Rover for Polar Crater Exploration

Text Reference

Paul Bartlett, David Wettergreen, and William (Red) L. Whittaker, "Design of the Scarab Rover for Mobility and Drilling in the Lunar Cold Traps," International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space, February, 2008.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Bartlett_2008_6087,
   author = "Paul Bartlett and David Wettergreen and William (Red) L. Whittaker",
   title = "Design of the Scarab Rover for Mobility and Drilling in the Lunar Cold Traps",
   booktitle = "International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space",
   month = "February",
   year = "2008",
}

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