E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Brad Jones / Neptec Design Group
The 8-inch iRing wheels on this demonstration rover are designed for driving on the moon.
Driving on the moon isn't as easy as shifting into first gear and putting the pedal to the metal. One team's solution to the challenge is to create wheels as sturdy as armor and as mushy as a bean-bag chair.
Researchers from Canada's McGill University have received a piece of an $11.5 million contract from the Canadian Space Agency to develop the wheel, dubbed iRing. The wheel is made of an external chainmail fabric (think medieval armor) and filled with granular particulate matter. "This distinctive design provides both flexibility and sturdiness when traveling over extremely bumpy lunar terrain," the university says.
Videos of the wheel prototypes demonstrate how its shock-absorbing characteristics reduce requirements for the rover suspension system, give it the grip necessary to climb walls, and conform to the surface they roll over.
The Canadian Space Agency contract was awarded to Neptec Design Group, which has offices in Ottawa and Houston, to build a Lunar Exploration Light Rover. This rover "will be capable of a variety of functions, including exploration, mapping of the lunar surface, drilling for water, excavation, preparation of landing sites for lunar landers and transporting astronauts to their lunar bases," according to the Neptec team.
The rover is one a few dozen under development around the world for a new era of exploration on the moon.
Lunar X Prize update
More than 20 of the teams working on these rovers are participating in the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition to land a robot on the moon and have it travel more than 500 meters (a third of a mile) on the surface as well as send images and data back to Earth.
Whether the Canadian rover is part of this competition remains to be seen. A likely disqualifier is its government funding, which is limited to 10 percent of the money needed to complete the mission, according to William Pomerantz, senior director of space prizes for the X Prize Foundation.
Registration for the competition closed on New Year's Eve. As the window closed, 21 teams had fully registered and 10 were partially registered. The last-minute completed applications are still under review. A final roster will be published in a few weeks.
"We were very, very pleased with the number, quality, and diversity of registrations we received right at the end," Pomerantz told me today via e-mail.
For more information on the Google Lunar X Prize, check out the stories below.
- Google funds $30 million moon prize
- Teams go after moon money
- Astrobiotic reveals moon mission plans
- Private race to the moon (and money) takes off
- Moon rocketeers take one small step, on Isle of Man
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
hmmm.. Chainmail tires filled with plastic beads or balls. I wonder if there is an estimated weight for each tire at full size to be used on the moon buggy.
I wonder how much the power requirement to move such soft wheels increased.
Well, with such light gravity up there I don't think it would be that big of an issue.
Chainmail tires, a blazing shield, a sword of rightousness and a Holy Mission to conquer the Moon!!!
(All while a Heavenly choir sings "Hallellujah" or "Ahhhhhh")
These tires look like the ones off my old Mattel Major Matt Mason moon vehicle. LoL!
Somewhere in Texas, a redneck bow hunter with a worn out 4x4 is masturbating to Cosmic Log videos...
aw I thought I was the only one. dang it!
LMAO
Happy New, mob...
Uhhh... I hope fixing a flat has been thought of. Bust off a few rings and out come the tire's guts.
Seems like a really radical new design, with a whole array of potential problems. By looking at it, I'd say it's bound to provide so much traction and drag as to bog down the batteries. I like new designs as much as anyone, but this seems too heavy to be practical. We don't want to gain traction but give up 80% of our power, do we? At any rate, why havn't we seen a more military-style design? Can anyone say...Tracks?
Probably because tracks require far far more maintenance than wheels do. Tracks do give more traction, however they introduce many more points of failure, which is a problem when you don't have good logistical support for it.
Mitchell
Wow, you're right! Why didn't the industry leader with over 15 years as a NASA prime contractor and several dozen PhD's on there staff think of friction?!? Or power/weight ratios?!?
Really? You think these guys are as nominally smart as you or I? Unless you are developing a competing LUNAR ROVER, I think we should leave the blatantly obvious to the doctoral candidates.
I think maple syrup would be a better filler for those tires.
This is great that they are figuring out how to get around on the moon and all but..."iRing"? Really? Guess there's no originality on the moon either. Apple will sue :p I guess iMoon was taken?
These look suspiciously like the tires that were developed for the Lunar Rover that went on the last few Apollo missions.
Did these guys actually 'develop' these or did they 'copy and paste' the design; and then decide to try and take full credit for it?
The Apollo lunar rover had hollow tires made from woven metal that could flex but maintain its shape. This new design seems more apt not to keep any shape but be lumpy uneven wobbly bags.
Ridiculous, NASA needs a complete overhaul if the agency is to remain open and looking forward.
This article has nothing to do with NASA.
Yes it is, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is funded and governed by NASA. Atll requirements are in accordtance with NASA moon misson requirements.
The GOOGLE Lunar X Prize is being funded by GOOGLE.
Actually it looks like a pretty good compromise to me. But what do I know? I"m not an engineer.
Won't the concern about the weight ratio be offset by the lighter gravity on the moon?
As for originality, we've been re-inventing the same basic technology for the last 3,000 years. If it works, it's proven, no "improvement" necessary on something as basic as this.
Still looks viable to me.
Why not adapt those flexible tracks, like can be added to your favorite 4x4 vehicle? They aren't articulated like caterpillar tracks, instead, being made of a kevlar-impregnated material. In vacuum, I'd suggest metal mesh, interwoven with kevlar belts, as rubber would probably disintegrate due to UV, and outgassing.
Remember the toy you could punch and almost break your hand and then just slowly press your finger right into his chest. I've forgotten the name of that but this kinda seems like what thier trying to do.
Stretch Armstrong
First thing that comes to mind is the moon's surface. It's a fine dust. If the tires are like a chainmail fabric, won't they get a build up of the dust and loose traction?
Dust will build up on anything they send there. What will function with dust contamination? New materials or rethinking how to use old ones?
I'd be more concerned with dust build up in the bearings than the tires.
Absolutely true, moon dust has the consistency of talcum powder and is hugely abrasive, more than any particles of a similar size on earth due to the lack of atmospheric effects.
Its a problem which effects all equipment up there as well as the space suits, i saw something recently about a suit fabric being developed with the properties of teflon - to allow the dust to slip off the suits.
I would imagine they would have that high on the list of potential problems when designing these rovers.
Actually, you are thinking too terrestrially. There is no moisture on the Moon so there is no danger of the dust "packing" since there would be no binding agent. The abrasion could still be a problem, and I would think that the steel chain-mail would be coated with Teflon to help, not only with abrasion but with wear-and-tear due to friction.
The idea has merit. The trick is in the merging of gripability and durability while not sacrificing mobility. Sounds fun.
I'm in the wrong business.
$11.5 million for wheels. Just stick some Krispy Kreme donuts on that thing. In the vacuum of space they will last several years! Squishy, durable, and tasty.
Functional and diplomatic for our alien buddies up there laughing at us.
I like it!
Cheaper by the dozen.