Here is a sneak peak of Komatsu on the moon. At the dawn of space exploration, Komatsu is taking on a challenge to develop a machine whose line of job is construction on the moon! The study of lunar construction equipment utilises the results of research and development commissioned by the Project for Promoting the Development of Innovative Technologies for Outer Space Autonomous Construction (A Japanese government project lead-managed by MLIT with the collaboration of MEXT).
We have successfully completed our sixth stress test and fourth Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP) test for our LIFE® 10 commercial space station technology, achieving a rupture at 255 psi, the highest pressure yet. This test exceeded NASA’s Factor of Safety recommendations, demonstrating a safety factor greater than 16x in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and 23x in lunar environments. Our team continues to lead in the development of expandable structures for various space applications, as we build the world’s first commercial space station.
The Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) is an unpressurized rover being developed for NASA that astronauts can drive on the Moon while wearing their spacesuits. The development of the LTV is a part of NASA’s Artemis Program, which involves returning astronauts to the Moon, specifically the lunar south pole, by 2026, but the LTV will not fly until Artemis V in 2030 at the earliest. The LTV will be the first crewed lunar rover developed by NASA since the Lunar Roving Vehicle used during the Apollo program.
On February 6, 2020, NASA issued a request, seeking industry feedback on relevant state-of-the-art commercial technologies and acquisition strategies for a new Lunar Terrain Vehicle. NASA also stated in the request that they want the new LTV to draw on recent innovations in electric vehicle energy storage and management, autonomous driving, and extreme environment resistance.”
On August 31, 2021, NASA released another request to private companies for additional input on approaches and solutions for a vehicle to transport Artemis astronauts around the lunar south pole. NASA also asked if American companies are interested in providing the LTV as a commercial service, or as a product NASA would purchase and own.
On November 2, 2022, NASA issued a draft request for proposals (RFP) for the LTV as a service (LTVS). The draft was open for feedback until December 1, with a planned final RFP release date of on or about February 8, 2023, a proposals due date approximately 30 days later, and an anticipated contract award date of on or about July 19.
On January 27, 2023, NASA published an update stating that it anticipated that the LTVS final RFP release will be delayed until no later than May 26. On May 26, NASA released its services request for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, with proposals due on July 10 and a contract award scheduled for November. On October 30, NASA delayed the award of the contract to March 31, 2024, to allow additional time to evaluate proposals.
On April 3, 2024, NASA announced that Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab are the three companies developing the LTV as part of a 12-month feasibility and demo phase. A source selection statement by NASA provided further details on cost and overall feasibility on 9 April, 2024. The Intuitive Machines proposal was for $1.692 billion, Lunar Outpost for $1.727 billion and Astrolab for $1.928 billion to develop the vehicle.
NASA is working with several American companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
These companies, ranging in size, bid on delivering payloads for NASA. This includes everything from payload integration and operations, to launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon. Under Artemis, commercial deliveries beginning in 2023 will perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the Moon as it prepares for human missions. CLPS contracts are indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts with a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion through 2028.
The Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbed currently houses two large indoor “sandboxes” filled with tons of simulated lunar dust. With both testbeds, most areas on the Moon can be simulated with a high degree of accuracy.
The facility’s first sandbox measures approximately 13 feet by 13 feet by 1.5 feet (4 meters by 4 meters by 0.5 meter) and is filled with eight tons of Johnson Space Center One simulant (JSC-1A) – making it the world’s largest collection of the material. The JSC-1A simulant mimics the Moon’s mare basins and is dark grey in color.
The facility was recently upgraded to include a second, larger testbed, filled with more than 20 tons of Lunar Highlands Simulant-1 (LHS-1), which is light grey to simulate the lunar highlands. It measures 62 feet by 13 feet by 1 foot (19 meters by 4 meters by 0.3 meter), and can be reconfigured to be a smaller, but deeper, testbed.
Sometimes researchers painstakingly shape the dust with hand tools to recreate, as accurately as possible, features astronauts and rovers are likely to encounter. These include tiny pits and small craters measuring as small as a couple feet to a few yards across. It may also mean placing small rocks and other debris to resemble actual places observed by Moon-orbiting spacecraft.
One feature that makes the Testbed truly unique, is a set of bright, high-power lights that simulate the Sun’s glaring rays as they are cast across the lunar landscape. Researchers can accurately recreate lighting conditions that are relevant to locations on the Moon’s poles and across a range of lunar times – past, present, or future.
Established in 2009 by NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program as the Lunar Regolith Testbed in the NASA Research Park at Ames, the facility was created through a partnership between the then-called NASA Lunar Science Institute (now the agency’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute) and the California Space Authority. Since then, it’s been used year-round by researchers seeking a high-fidelity environment to test hardware designs intended for the lunar surface, including projects within the agency’s Advanced Exploration Systems and Game Changing Development technology programs.
VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a lunar rover developed by NASA (Ames Research Center), and currently planned to be delivered to the surface of the Moon in November 2024. The rover will be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region, especially by mapping the distribution and concentration of water ice. The mission builds on a previous NASA rover concept called Resource Prospector, which was cancelled in 2018.
The VIPER rover, currently in development, will have a size similar to a golf cart (around 1.4 Ă— 1.4 Ă— 2 m), and will be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources, especially for water ice, mapping its distribution, and measuring its depth and purity. The water distribution and form must be better understood before it can be evaluated as a potential resource within any evolvable lunar or Mars campaign.
The VIPER rover is part of the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program managed by the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, and it is meant to support the crewed Artemis program. NASA’s Ames Research Center is managing the rover project. The hardware for the rover is being designed by the Johnson Space Center, while the instruments are provided by Ames, Kennedy, and Honeybee Robotics. The project manager is Daniel Andrews, and the project scientist is Anthony Colaprete, who is implementing the technology developed for the now cancelled Resource Prospector rover. The estimated cost of the mission is US$250 million in October 2019. NASA said on 3 March 2021 that the new lifecycle cost for the mission is US$433.5 million.
The VIPER rover will operate on the western edge of Nobile crater on Mons Mouton in the Moon’s south pole region. It is planned to rove several kilometers, collecting data on different kinds of soil environments affected by light and temperature — those in complete darkness, occasional light and in constant sunlight. Once it enters a permanently shadowed location, it will operate on battery power alone and will not be able to recharge them until it drives to a sunlit area. Its total operation time will be 100 Earth days.
Both the launcher and the lander to be used are competitively provided through Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contractors, with Astrobotic delivering the Griffin lander and SpaceX providing the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. NASA is aiming to land the rover in November 2024.
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