Abstract
Hakuto is developing a dual rover system for the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP) and exploration of a potential lava tube skylight. We designed, built and tested two rovers and a lander interface in order to prove flight-readiness. The rover architecture was iterated over several prototype phases as an academic project, and then updated for flight-readiness using space-ready Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) parts and a program for qualifying terrestrial COTS parts as well as the overall system. We have successfully tested a robust rover architecture including controllers with performance orders of magnitude higher than currently available space-ready controllers. The test regime included component level radiation testing to 15.3 kilo-rads, integrated thermal vacuum testing to simulate the environments during the cruise phase and surface mission phases, integrated vibration testing to 10 G\(_{rms}\), and field testing. The overall development methodology of moving from a flexible architecture composed of inexpensive parts towards a single purpose architecture composed of qualified parts was successful and all components passed testing, with only minor changes required to flight model rovers required ahead of a mid 2016 launch date.
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Walker, J., Britton, N., Yoshida, K., Shimizu, T., Burtz, LJ., Pala, A. (2016). Update on the Qualification of the Hakuto Micro-rover for the Google Lunar X-Prize. In: Wettergreen, D., Barfoot, T. (eds) Field and Service Robotics. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 113. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27702-8_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27702-8_21
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