Unmanned Systems Technology 006 | ECA Inspector Mk2 USV | Antenna systems | Northwest UAV NW-44 | Unmanned ground vehicles | Navigation systems | Lunar X challenge

77 cost is the launch: each kilo costs at least $700,000 to lift, so there is a key engineering trade-off between systems redundancy to ensure the rovers work on the lunar surface and the cost of actually getting there. It has also stimulated new ways to get to the Moon, combining the SpaceX reusable launch system with a multi- project autonomous transport vehicle to take the rovers from high-Earth orbit to the lunar surface. The past few years however have shown how hard the competition really is. In 2008, soon after it was announced, there were 28 teams in contention, but by the original deadline of December 2015 none had even come close to launching. With 16 teams now remaining, the deadline has been extended to the end of 2017, and ‘milestone’ prizes of $1m and $500,000 to provide more support for the later stages of the projects are being awarded. Landing winners The Landing milestone looks at all the hardware and software to support a soft landing on the Moon. A group of judges monitored teams as they tested items such as attitude control to be used en route to the Moon, tracking systems, navigation and control for the lunar descent (including the sensors being used) as well as the proposed propulsion systems, landing legs or touchdown devices and the onboard autonomy. Three winning teams – Astrobotic and Moon Express in the US, and Team Indus from India – have each won $1m. Astrobotic’s Griffin lander will determine the safest site to land by using a laser sensor to construct a 3D model of the surface autonomously as it descends. This hazard avoidance software, together with a prototype sensor package, will be integrated into a sub-orbital rocket owned and operated by Masten Space Systems. Team Indus, which is part of Bangalore-based aerospace start-up Axiom Research Labs, won its award by building a full-scale prototype of its lander structure, using aluminium honeycomb panels to give it a lightweight structure and featuring four impact- absorbing landing legs.  For its award, Moon Express developed a flexible spacecraft design called MX-1 that is intended to be the basis of a commercial space system as well as a lander. It is designed to ride to Earth orbit on low-cost secondary payload opportunities aboard commercial launchers such as the SpaceX Falcon 9, which are radically reducing the cost of access to space. The lander will use jet fuel to leave Earth orbit, then hydrogen peroxide for the journey to the Moon. Spacecraft workhorse The MX-1 is also designed to be a flexible spacecraft platform that can support applications including serving as a flexible upper stage for existing launch systems, enabling Earth-orbit CubeSat miniaturised satellite deployment, satellite servicing and ‘space tug’ applications such as clearing up space debris. “The MX-1 is not just a lunar lander, it is a spacecraft workhorse with many markets,” says Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards. “The MX-1 is the ‘iPhone of space’ – a platform capable of supporting many apps including our core plan of exploring the Moon for resources of benefit to humanity.” The MX-1 is expected to launch by the end of 2016, in the first journey of the competition, with rovers from Astrobotic and Japanese contestant Hakuto. For the Mobility milestone, the judges looked at the primary mobility actuators, which could be wheels, tracks or even thrusters to push the craft back up into space to travel the specified 500 m, as well as the mechanisms for pointing, driving and throttling the actuators. Lunar X challenge | Insight Unmanned Systems Technology | February/March 2016 The MX-1 is the ‘iPhone’ of space – a platform capable of supporting many apps including our core plan of Moon exploration Hakuto’s dual rover is designed so that the rear vehicle can be lowered into holes in the ground for exploration