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The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
Snapshots from the Lunar Regolith Challenge
Jun. 4, 2007 | 15:13 PDT | 22:13 UTC
The Lunar Regolith Challenge is one of the NASA Centennial Challenges, in which NASA offers cash prizes (ranging from $250,000 to $2 million) to stimulate innovation and competition in the development of new technologies for solar system exploration. The Lunar Regolith Challenge, with a $250,000 prize, asked entrants to build a fully autonomous system weighing under 40 kilograms and requiring only 30 Watts of power to excavate as much simulated regolith from a sandbox as possible and deliver it to a fixed collector next to the sandbox.
By now, many of you may be asking: what the heck is regolith? Regolith is the name that planetary geologists give to the rocks and dust that form the surface layer of another planet. It's what most people would call "soil" but to a geologist, "soil" requires living creatures to break down organic matter in order to form -- something that's clearly not happening on Mars or the Moon. And regolith is really very different from the dirt you have in your backyard. Regolith is incredibly dry, and on both the Moon and Mars it involves a great deal of microscopically fine dust. This dust is so fine that electrostatic attraction helps it to cling to just about anything. So digging into it is seriously difficult -- but it's an important skill that we'll have to master before setting up permanent bases and/or extracting resources from the Moon, thus the Centennial Challenge.
Anyway, the event took place on May 12, and Mat Kaplan was there; he recorded from the event for this week's Planetary Radio show. Here are a few pictures he took of four of the entrants. Lunar Regolith ChallengeAt the Lunar Regolith Challenge in Santa Maria, California, on May 12, 2007, the entry from Technology Ranch of Pismo Beach, led by Jim Greenshaw, attempts the challenge. It did reasonably well, but lost a lot of regolith because the chute leading to the collection box was not steep enough; the dusty regolith stuck to the chute and failed to drop in to the box. Credit: Mat Kaplan | Lunar Regolith ChallengeAt the Lunar Regolith Challenge in Santa Maria, California, on May 12, 2007, the bucket wheel entry from Geoffry Pulk of Dupplex Engineering in Michigan scoops soil. This entry -- which had no microprocessors, just two relays and a diode -- was unfortunately damaged by UPS during shipping. It was doing well until an inadequately repaired bucket tore loose and jammed the wheel. Credit: Mat Kaplan | Lunar Regolith ChallengeThis was the most interesting, sophisticated, and frightening of the entries in the Lunar Regolith Challenge in Santa Maria, California, on May 12, 2007. The entry from Terra Engineering of Rancho Palos Verdes, California, led by Todd Mendenhall, could have a starring role in a horror movie. Ironically, the regolith in the challenge proved to be easier to dig than the team expected, and they could not adjust their software to compensate. Credit: Mat Kaplan | Lunar Regolith ChallengeThis Rube Golbergesque device was the entry from University of Missouri, Rolla engineering students to the Lunar Regolith Challenge, held in Santa Maria, California, on May 12, 2007. It had some interesting features, including a vibrating chute to keep the regolith moving. Too bad it didn't collect any regolith -- and that its electronics started smoking almost immediately. Credit: Mat Kaplan |
For much more information, listen to the show!
It occurs to me that it's been a long time since I pointed out the excellent interviews that Mat's been doing on Planetary Radio. In the last month, he's spoken with Alan Stern on New Horizons' flight past Jupiter and its moons; Richard Massey on the dark matter discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope; Imke de Pater on the rings of Uranus; and Linda Spilker on the status of the Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons. And I should also point out that A. J. S. Rayl recently posted the latest of her ongoing in-depth reports on the exploits of Spirit and Opportunity at Mars.
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