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A Long-Duration Propulsive Lunar Landing Testbed

Krishna Shankar, Kevin Peterson, Heather Jones, Justin Moidel, and William (Red) L. Whittaker
Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May, 2011.


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Abstract
Affordable test articles for descent and landing are crucial for developing commercial lunar landing capability. To ensure successful lunar landing, flight software must be tested over mission-length durations on hardware exhibiting dynamics analogous to those of true flight articles. Energetic and structural constraints typically preclude affordable longduration lander tests. This paper details a first-in-kind propulsive lunar lander testbed designed for long-duration testing. The hardware and software on this platform exhibit dynamics that closely approximate those of real lunar landers and are exhibited to operate stably and indefinitely. The platform requires minimal infrastructure and is low cost to operate. Platform configuration is outlined and state estimation for indefinite duration testing is detailed.

Notes
Associated Center(s) / Consortia: Field Robotics Center
Associated Project(s): Google Lunar X Prize

Text Reference
Krishna Shankar, Kevin Peterson, Heather Jones, Justin Moidel, and William (Red) L. Whittaker, "A Long-Duration Propulsive Lunar Landing Testbed," Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May, 2011.

BibTeX Reference
@inproceedings{Shankar_2011_6945,
   author = "Krishna Shankar and Kevin Peterson and Heather Jones and Justin Moidel and William (Red) L. Whittaker",
   title = "A Long-Duration Propulsive Lunar Landing Testbed",
   booktitle = "Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation",
   month = "May",
   year = "2011",
}

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