A soft landing
After more than 400,000 kilometers, 7 days flight time and maximum speeds of more than 10,000 meters/second, nothing beats a soft landing. How gentle such a “soft landing” really is, is something our lander and rover will eventually experience. However, first the lander must decelerate by more than 2,500 meters/second and fly just a few hundred meters above the lunar surface with its craters, peaks and valley to the landing site. The landing is like a free-fall from a height of 1 meters on earth. If the lander is still intact, it has reached its destination: the moon.
The longest route
Right afterward the lunar rover Asimov starts on its exploration mission. 2 meters/minute is all the rover can make, so a team of several drivers will remotely operate the rover from the Earth and try to make the best of the current lunar day, which at that point will still last for more than 240 hours. However, Asimov is more than just a remote –controlled car. It takes practice and skill to navigate the rover safely among the moon rocks, craters and other obstacles. Since the signal takes 3 seconds to travel from the Earth to the moon, the drivers need to plan ahead. In less than 2 (Earth) days Asimov’s mission is to travel 5 kilometers in unknown and difficult terrain. After all, there are many interesting things to explore, for example the remains of NASA’s Apollo missions.
Chilling nights
After about 15 (Earth) days of sun and comfy 125˚C comes possibly the biggest challenge of a lunar mission: the lunar night. Compared to the moon, Mars, which at least has an atmosphere and just 80˚C of day/night temperature range, is more like an idyllic intergalactic vacation resort. On the moon, where the lunar night averages -160˚C (285˚C day/night range), you have to do more than dress warm. During the lunar night, the rover goes into hibernation, while the extreme cold pierces every seal, gasket and microchip down to smallest little gear inside the rover. After 14.5 (Earth) days of extreme cold, darkness and vacuum, temperatures will rise quickly. Then will be revealed what was stronger: the merciless lunar night or the valiant Asimov. It will either remain in eternal sleep or embark on another new and exciting day on the moon.
The Team
At the end of 2008 a small group of scientists and engineers got together for the first time to plan the impossible: to land their very own rover on the moon. Six months and numerous concepts and ideas later the team finally secured sponsorship by the semiconductor firm Texas Instruments and publisher O’Reilly and entered the Google Lunar X-Prize as the first German team. The team started out with 10 members, but grew under increasing technological development and media attention soon to 50 and further to currently about 70 members. In December of 2009 the team presented the first fruits of their labors at the Chaos Communication Congress, Germany’s largest conference for information technology. In front of live audience of over 1400 people and many more online, the team presented “Asimov Jr. R0”, the first-ever privately built moon rover prototype. In the intervening 12 months, many things developed and changed, new partnerships were made, new alliances grew, and more prototypes were built. Yet one thing remains unaltered: we want to go back to the moon!
Partners and Technology
The first landing on the moon, now some 40 years ago, required the skills of 35,000 scientist and engineers to bring 3 people safely to the moon and back. Utilizing cutting edge technologies, with the help of our partners, we aim land a lunar rover on the moon. Our partners include experienced aerospace companies, such as Schneider-Kreuznach. Other companies, like the carbon-fiber manufacturer Crosslink-Fibertech, from the Formula One environment, are looking to their cooperation with us to open new markets for them. Each of our partnerships is a symbiosis with large technological, economical and public-relations benefits for both sides.
Hell Yeah It’s Rocket Science!
No other five words can capture the excitement and enthusiasm for space exploration, which has been fading in the public attention the last few decades. Rockets, rovers and audacious missions hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from our planet Earth. With this daring and uniqueness, our mission can captivate both young and old. We continually seek contact with our fans. Our latest success is the “Hell Yeah It’s Rocket Science” fan group on Facebook, which rocketed in just 12 weeks from the initial hundred or so members to over 10,000 fans. Our goal is to return space exploration back into the public’s attention, like it was 40 years ago, and demonstrate that nothing is impossible, when one puts one’s mind to it.
