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Design of an Excavation Robot: Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) 2.0To continue on a sustainable and flexible path, NASA needs to address the challenge of collecting and moving large amounts of regolith at the destination. Acquiring the water resources on Mars will require mining significant quantities of regolith and this is not possible with the state-of-the-art low mass excavation systems. Low gravity environments (Mars = 3/8 G) and launch mass restrictions limit the traction and the resulting reaction force of the vehicle, making current terrestrial techniques impractical. This project addressed this challenge by developing a completely new technology that can mine large quantities of regolith on Mars. Recent measurements by the “Curiosity” rover on Mars have found that the regolith contains ~ 2% water by weight globally, ~4% in Jezero Crater (Human Architecture Team’s reference landing site), and much more at the poles(Leshin et al, 2013). RASSOR 2.0 is a planetary excavator, which has a mass of 66 kg, with a 0.38 kg vehicle mass per kilogram, per hour of excavation rate and power usage of 4 W per kg of regolith excavation rate. A single RASSOR 2.0 can excavate a minimum of 2.7 metric tons of regolith per day.This is accomplished by using counteracting excavation forces on two opposing digging implements called bucket drums and an autonomous mining control system. This work has addressed several major research areas outlined in the NASA Technology Area (TA) 04 Robotics & Autonomous Systems and TA 07 Human Destination Systems roadmaps. This project started at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 as a low fidelity “proof of concept” prototype which has successfully demonstrated basic regolith simulant excavation functionality in a lab-scale gravity off load test. The foundational technology described here was awarded US patent number: US 9027265 for a “Zero horizontal reaction force excavator” on May 12, 2015.
Document ID
20210011366
Acquisition Source
Kennedy Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Robert P Mueller
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Jonathan D Smith
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Jason M Schuler
(Enterprise Advisory Services Inc. Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Andrew J Nick
(Sierra Lobo (United States) Fremont, Ohio, United States)
Nathan J Gelino
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Kurt W Leucht
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Ivan I Townsend
(Craig Technologies (United States) Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States)
Adam G Dokos
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Date Acquired
March 16, 2021
Publication Date
April 11, 2016
Publication Information
Publication: ASCE Earth & Space Conference
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Report/Patent Number
STI NO. 25616
Meeting Information
Meeting: ASCE Earth & Space Conference
Location: Orlando, Florida
Country: US
Start Date: April 11, 2016
End Date: April 15, 2016
Sponsors: American Society of Civil Engineers
Funding Number(s)
WBS: 596118.04.65.76
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
Patent
US 9,027,265 B1
Patent Application
Technical Review
External Peer Committee
Keywords
RASSOR
Excavator
Excavation
ISRU
Bucket Drum
Mining
Digging
Regolith
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