Team FREDNET: Google Lunar X Prize

Picorover with Spikes!

2009-03-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

The plain Picorover with blank surface is quite good at climbing moderate slopes. Nonetheless, people suggested that the climbing capabilities could be improved by adding spikes to the surface of the sphere. Well, you don't have to tell us twice! Here is the experiment.

Can a Picorover Climb a Slope?

2009-03-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

The Picorover team consisting of Raul, Enric and Joshua (leader) are very busy with keeping up to speed with the development of the other rover concepts (Jaluro and WRV1). The Picorover concept has a lot to prove before it can be decided whether it is a feasible design for a lunar rover.

This video shows a feasibility study investigating the dynamical properties of Picorover on a slope. The technical details of the study can be found in Picorover Feasibility Study.

New WRV1 Lunar Rover Mock-up

2009-03-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

Here is a new WRV1 lunar rover mock-up from Jörg using the new state of the art wheels, the steering unit and... Stokys (erector set) for the rest. As you can see, there is even plenty of room left for electronics :-)

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Scaled WRV1 wheel design for the Jaluro lunar rover

2009-02-28T03:22:00.000-08:00

As some people have already noticed, one of the advantages of having several competing rover designs being developed in an open-source way is that they can share common components across the designs. An example of this is Jörg's impressive wheel design for his WRV1 lunar rover prototype, which is now also available in an up-scaled version that could be used for the Jaluro lunar rover prototype.

Jaluro is the two-wheeled rover design, while WRV1 is the four-wheeled rover design that can "bend" in the middle. Consequently, Jaluro achieves static stability by moving the center of mass below the axe and therefore needs larger wheels that the WRV1 rover.

WRV1 Lunar Rover:

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Jaluro Lunar Rover:

From Jaluro: Just Another Lunar Rover

Sounds interesting? Feel free to contribute with your ideas in the discussion forums for the Jaluro and the WRV1 lunar rover prototypes.

Happy Birthday Ørsted

2009-02-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

Today, Feb 23 2009, we could celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first Danish satellite called Ørsted. The main scientific objective of the Ørsted mission was to map the Earth's magnetic field and collect data to determine the changes occurring in the magnetic field.

While a satellite turning 10 years is no big deal on its own, the Ørsted satellite is remarkable in many ways. Despite a very low budget, it provided highly valuable science results published in many prominent scientific journals and graced the cover pages of Geophysical Research Letters, Nature and Eos. Former NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin was rumored to have a model of the Ørsted satellite on display in his office, because it exemplified his "faster, better, cheaper" philosophy.

Ørsted was originally designed to have an operational life time of 14 months, which was eventually extended to a few years. Today, 10 years later, you can still hear it transmit science data in the 2.2 GHz satellite band.

Ørsted is also a satellite that has survived a close encounter with another spacecraft. On March 20, 2001, Ørsted was merely 3.25 km away from collision with the Argentinean SAC-C satellite - a distance that at orbital velocities corresponds to no more than half a second!

In 2010, Ørsted will be replaced by the European Space Agency's Swarm mission. Swarm will consist of three identical satellites that will measure Earth's magnefic field with even higher presicision and resolution. The concept has been developed by Danish scientists and is based on the experience gained through the Ørsetd mission.

The Ørsted satellite by Jan Erik Rasmussen, DTU Space.

Finished WRV1 wheels

2009-02-20T14:34:00.000-08:00

I can tell you Jörg has been busy this week but now he has finished two wheels for the WRV1 lunar rover (and we still have the prototype with the disc hub). Have a nice weekend everybody - we'll be back next week with more news.

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Steering Unit for the WRV1 Lunar Rover

2009-02-18T12:43:00.000-08:00

The steering unit in the middle of the WRV1 lunar rover is a critical component because it defines the dynamical properties of the rover - in particular its ability to maneuver. Jörg has now manufactured the three key parts that allow the rover body to bend around two axes.

WRV1 Wheel Hubs

2009-02-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

Jörg has now finished manufacturing four wheel hubs for the WRV1 rover prototype. For reference, I have also included the blueprint that has been posted earlier. Personally, I am very impressed by seeing the real thing look like on the specifications - I wish we could do the same in the software world ;-)

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Arianespace Launches New WebTV Site

2009-02-11T13:21:00.000-08:00

If you like to watch rocket launches you might be glad to know that Arianespace has launched a new WebTV site called VideoCorner just a few days ago.

They broadcast live coverage, the next one 12 Feb 22:09 UTC, as well as archived videos of Vega, Soyuz, and Ariane 5 launches and related topics. They even got a podcast area now :-)

News from Vietnam

2009-02-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Inspired by our Open Source Communication Lab, our friends from Vietnam have started to play with software radios using the USRP and GNU Radio. After a few weeks of study they are now able to receive Automatic Picture Transmissions from the NOAA weather satellites as well as signals from current amateur radio satellites in low Earth orbit.

Inevitably, they have now formed a group of young engineers who are interested in ham radio, electronics, robots, astronomy and space exploration. At the moment, they work in the newly established FSpace lab of FPT Corp. where Thu (who is active on our forum) used to be a software engineer. He has now quit that job to pursuit his dream of space exploration.

Their current project is to design and manufacture a nanosatellite which will measure about 10x10x30cm and weight about 3kg. They expect to have it ready in 18 months (starting from 1/1/2009) and launch it to LEO (600-800km, sun-sync orbit) by the end of 2010. This is the first time they've ever worked in a real space mission. While they understand that there are many things to learn and many difficulties ahead, they are confident that they can do it if they try hard. Currently, they have 4 full-time people (Thu and the other 3 in the photo) and about 10 supporters/collaborators of the project.

From Communication Equipment

PS: Thu has recently passed his amateur radio exam and has now the callsign XV9AA.

Jaluro off the Leash

2009-02-07T09:13:00.000-08:00

Let's round off this week with some breaking news about Jaluro and a story about just how crazy we are.

Jaluro is now off the leash! You may remember the first Jaluro video posted about 6 weeks ago when Tobi was making the first tests using a wired connection. Now, Jaluro has got a wireless control and Tobi recorded the video below showing his first outdoor tests using the wireless interface.

We were also happy to see some clear evidence (see NASA and Caltech Test Steep-Terrain Rover) that the two-wheeled concept is a very viable option for planetary exploration. We wish Jaluro could get the same media attention as JPL News ;-)

The evening before Tobi recorded this video, we were hanging out on our IRC channel (#teamfrednet) having some casual chats about "stuff". Suddenly, Tobi got the idea of setting Jaluro up so that Anders and myself could send commands to it from Copenhagen! Before we knew it, we were also broadcasting it live via ustream.tv so that everybody on the channel could watch Jaluro do something as we were sending commands to it. It was a crazy Thursday night that ended around 3 AM CET. You can read the IRC log here.

By the way, anybody is welcome to hang out on our IRC channel. It is #teamfrednet on irc.freenode.net or you can use a web interface (choose a real nickname instead of mib_***).

I'll be back next week with more crazy news.

Scheduled Radio Contact with the ISS

2009-02-05T18:03:00.001-08:00

If you happen to live in Europe, you'll have the chance to listen to the astronauts from the International Space Station as they talk to students from Städtisches Gymnasium Herzogenrath in Germany. The event is scheduled for Saturday Feb 7 and it will begin at approximately 10:36 UTC.

You will need a radio receiver capable of receiving 145.800 MHz narrow FM. The signals from the ISS are usually rather strong and a handheld scanner should be able to receive audible signals.

I don't exactly know which astronaut will be speaking but they will use the ham radio call sign OR4ISS.

The students will ask as many of the following questions as time permits:
1. To what extent do we on earth profit from your experiments on the ISS?
2. What are the aims of your present mission?
3. How much energy do you need daily and what kind of energy is it?
4. What about radiation on the ISS? Does it harm your health?
5. Have you had any problems with oncoming meteorites or space debris?
6. Which qualifications do you need to be on such a mission?
7. What were your feelings and emotions during lift off?
8. Do you lose your sense of time on the ISS?
9. How do you spend your free time on the ISS?
10. Have you got any room for your personal belongings?
11. What happens if you are ill?
12. What happens to the human body if you stay in space too long?
13. How often do you see the sunrise on the ISS per day?
14. What happens in case of an emergency, for example if the ISS is on fire?
15. Can you sleep well in a state of zero gravity?
16. How do you wash your hair?
17. How many experiments do you do a day?
18. Have you and your colleagues become friends?
19. What would you say is your most important experience on the ISS?
20. When do you think will mankind be able to leave our solar system?

ARISS is an international educational outreach program partnering the participating space agencies, NASA, Russian Space Agency, ESA, CNES, JAXA, and CSA, with the AMSAT and IARU organizations from participating countries.

Feature Recognition and Tracking

2009-02-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Autonomous feature recognition and tracking can be a useful navigational aid during the final phase of the lunar landing. This video shows a quick-hack prototype for recognizing and continuously tracking lines and circles at 15 frames per second (the red lines in the second part of the video).

Of course, the situation will be more difficult during lunar descent because deviations from mathematical lines and circles will occur. So there is still a lot of work to do :-)

Update from the Team FREDNET Lunar Babies Club

2009-02-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

In the big rush I almost forgot to bring you the latest edition of this rather occasional newsletter - shame on me...

Lunar Baby no. 2
Aaron Magnus Krieger-Kuritko, born 27 Nov 2008 20:00 GMT. Weight: 3,920kg. Proud parents: Theresia and Tobias Krieger Kuritko (yes, Tobi is the creator of Jaluro - really beats me how he has time for a job, family and to work on Jaluro).

From Team FREDNET Lunar Babies

Lunar Baby no. 3 - is already in the loop and you can try to guess the date and time of arrival. The person who comes closest will receive a free Team FREDNET mission patch. The deadline for submitting your guess (as a comment to this post) is Saturday 14 Feb 2009 23:59:59 UTC.

Picorover photos and sketches

2009-01-30T04:47:00.000-08:00

Picorover has now its own photo album, which contains more photos and drawings than were included in the video posted few days ago.

Picorover

2009-01-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

Okay, here is the newest entrant in our rover design competition that has caused a lot of discussions on our forum during the last few days: A moving sphere with two degrees of freedom. Enjoy!

Two-wheel robot shoots for the Moon

2009-01-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

It has been brought to my attention that in addition to the Ask Charlie Blog there is also an article in Control Engineering about Team FREDNET, JALURO , and the Google Lunar X PRIZE in general. You can read the article online here.

Ask Charlie: Is it possible to stabilize a 2-wheel robotic vehicle?

2009-01-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's about JALURO :-)
Charlie Masi from Control Engineering blogged about our 2-wheel rover prototype and the control challenges we are faced with. While the 2-wheel setup with underslung chassis is statically stable, the pendulum-like properties make it difficult to keep the rover body stable during acceleration and deceleration. You can read the blog post, which also contains an analysis, on the Control Engineering website.

For the sake of completeness, I've included the video showing JALURO's first test drive (this was already posted back in December 2008).

Updated wheel hub and blueprints for WRV1

2009-01-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy week both at my daytime job, which pays my bills, and my nighttime job, FREDNET. In the meantime Jörg has uploaded an updated wheel design for WRV1 as well as some blueprints hoping to find people who can help manufacturing the many parts. So, GLXP fans, here is your chance to help building some hardware for this cool lunar rover prototype! Let us know if you can help.

The wheel with the new hub and modified segments:

Wheel segment:

The wheel spoke:

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Steering Gearbox with Redundant Motors for WRV1

2009-01-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

Jörg posted an update on the steering Gearbox using two stepper motors (for redundancy) and the shaft for moving the two WRV1 halves.

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Mooncast Simulation in HD

2009-01-09T05:29:00.000-08:00

While working on our on-board video processing pipeline we reached a point where we needed a test video that would be representative of a mooncast for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Using a regular video is not the best solution here because a mooncast has a different motion and color profile and these parameters can have great influence on the efficiency of the compression algorithms.
Therefore, we took some Apollo 17 surface photos from EVA 2 Station 4 (Shorty crater) and created a simulated mooncast consisting of a 360 degree pan. To make it a bit more entertaining we added some original voice recordings from the EVA.

The simulation uses stereographic projection, which allows panning and zooming in all directions. The vertical field of view is 60 degrees. The flickering of the small stones is an artifact of the projection algorithm and not the video compression. We will have to improve that.

Watch in HD

So what do you think? Is the quality good enough for a GLXP mooncast? Or is it too bad? Is the panning too slow or too fast? Leave your comments!

One rover, two rovers... many rovers?

2009-01-06T06:04:00.000-08:00

If you have followed Team FREDNET during the last few months you have probably noticed that our team members are working on two very different rover designs. Why do we develop several designs instead of focusing our efforts on the design?

The thing is that we are trying to build up a large and engaged community and there are many ways to do it. We have chosen a way where instead of expecting everybody to support one official design line we invite and encourage people to work on their own ideas and demonstrate that it provides the best solution for a given problem. Using our public forum and wiki they can collaborate with other members of the team and share common components across the competing designs. They may even find other members who support their idea and would like to contribute to it. They can organize themselves in informal working groups without the need for any official approval from the team management.

While this may not be the most efficient way towards winning the Google Lunar X PRIZE, we are sure that this is one of the best ways to engage interested individuals and groups and give them a fair chance to prove what they are capable of. Basically, it is the same concept as the whole Google Lunar X PRIZE but applied at a smaller scale.

Currently we have this parallel design study/competition concept going on in the rover area, but we expect similar parallel design studies applied to other subsystems as well. If the organizational concept works out, we can at the end choose the most suitable configuration. It also provides additional security against making the wrong design decisions early in the process and suffering from it for the rest of the program.

The two rover concepts currently being worked on at Team FREDNET: WRV1 (left) and Jaluro (right).

Of course, turning an idea into a design and implementation that can prove suitable for a lunar mission requires hard work and stamina. There is a very long way from a conceptual design to a working prototype. Fortunately, we have many active members who has the right stuff to take their ideas all the way to the end.

You can read more about our rover design competition Moon amateurs invite rover designs from the public.

What are your thoughts about this? Will it work or will it leave us in a hopeless situation? We'd love to hear your comments.

The Moon with a Webcam

2009-01-02T06:11:00.000-08:00

I am working on a setup where I'm trying to mount a cheap webcam onto my Meade ETX-90 telescope for terrestrial observations. While I was working on the setup the other night I looked out the window and saw the Moon behind a tree. Without thinking too much I pointed the telescope towards the Moon and recorded this video.

Concerning the bad quality it should be noted that:

It was recorded with a webcam
It was recorded through a double-glas window (which was dirty)
The Moon was behind a tree

I will try to improve on the setup, although I made it for a completely different purpose.

The Definitive Guide to Open Source Hardware - 2008

2008-12-27T08:43:00.000-08:00

Again this year MAKE Magazine blog has publishes the annual Open Source Hardware Guide listing no less than 60 open source hardware projects, ranging from simple microcontroller boards to a fully functional cell phone. Open source hardware are projects where the designers have decided to publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files necessary to recreate the hardware. The open source licensing allows any use, including commercial.

In many cases you really wouldn't care about the schematics for your cell phone; however, when designing and building complex systems it is a priceless advantage to have the design and the schematics of the individual components at your disposal. You can avoid many surprises during integration since you have a chance to find out exactly what you are buying instead of just getting a black box which may or may not live up to your expectations (lets face it, there always a huge gap between what a sales department advertises and what the technical department delivers). Moreover, you have the freedom to use the hardware you bought the way you want to and not the way the manufacturer wants you to. And you don't risk being sued just because you opened up the box to look at what's under the hood.

Hopefully, it will not take many years before we will see complete space systems on the list :-)

Daisy MP3 player - An open source MP3 player

The Neo FreeRunner open source cell phone.

Jaluro's First Test Drive

2008-12-23T14:58:00.000-08:00

Tobi promised that Jaluro will drive before Christmas '08 and so here it is.

Season's Greetings from Team FREDNET

2008-12-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

After one year of hard work it was now time to have some fun :-)

Jaluro v0.1 ready to rock and roll

2008-12-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

If you happen to live in Vienna, Austria, you better watch out on the streets because Jaluro v0.1 is ready to rock and roll. Here are some fresh photos and stay tuned for a video of Jaluro v0.1 in action!

Jaluro prototype chassis and wheel support.

Tobi and son cutting out the wheels for Jaluro.
When we say anybody can help us we really mean it :-)

Jaluro v0.1 ready to rock and roll!

Side view of the mock-up.

Jaluro v0.1 in action.

Drive by wire :-)

Article about Team FREDNET and Elphel Inc

2008-12-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

A very nice article about the open source and open minded partnership between Team FREDNET and Elphel Inc has just appeared on linuxDevices.com. The article was written by Anders Feder who is a very active member of Team FREDNET and also maintains his own blog called Open Space Exploration Journal.

As the article points out, it is an interesting coincidence (?) that Elphel cameras were also used for the virtual Google Books library and the Google Street View service - and now also in the Google Lunar X PRIZE :-)

WRV1 Wheel Prototype Assembled

2008-12-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

Sitting in my apartment in Denmark on a cold winter evening, I can only wish I was in sunny California for the Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit. Fortunately, I can listen to the discussions via Fred's VOIP and talk to him via Google chat despite the fact that I am more than 7000 km away.

At the same time, exciting news keep coming in reporting progress on the rover side: Jörg from Switzerland has now assembled the first wheel prototype for his WRV1 rover. The current weight of the wheel is 96 grams but the wheel support will have to be cut out so it will come down to about 60 grams (for the prototype).

From WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1

Lunar Landing Concepts

2008-12-11T11:06:00.000-08:00

An overview of some lunar landing concepts that are being worked on in Team FREDNET has been posted on our forum recently.

The Sky on the Moon

2008-12-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

We had some discussions on our public forum recently about using the stars and the planets for guidance and navigation on the lunar surface. Of course, it raises the question of how the sky looks like on the Moon? To find out, I took a virtual trip to the Apollo 11, 15 and Surveyor 7 landing sites using the free open source Stellarium software. Stellarium is a complete planetarium software for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It even allows you to look at the sky from surface of other planets and moons.

Other free software used in producing this video was the Gimp for image manipulations and Kdenlive for non-linear video editing. Thus, the video was created using only free open source software including the OS, which was Ubuntu linux.

You can also watch the video in higher resolution on the YouTube page.

PS: I have hidden a small error in the first 20 seconds of the video, and I am not thinking about the lunar landscape. The first person to identify this error will receive a free Team FREDNET mission patch :-)

WRV1 Progress

2008-12-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

Jörg from Switzerland has made some exciting progress with his WRV1 rover prototype. The CAD design for the wheel and gearbox was posted earlier and here are the first pictures of the manufactured parts for the wheel.

First Jörg had to create some tools for being able the produce the cut metal sheet parts (thickness 0.8mm), so on this picture you see some tools and the parts in the order of the production. In front the cutout sheet metal (AL), the outside bended, the fixture bended and finally the holes reinforced:

A closer look to the tool allowing to reinforce the holes by beading the borders:

And here is the result of about 15 hours of preparation and 4 hours of production (some steps are to be optimized!!). The whole wheel weighs about 23 grams (with brass pins instead of Teflon pins):

WRV1 References:
- WRV1 idea and concept
- WRV1 Wiki portal

Motors and gears for Jaluro

2008-11-30T05:45:00.000-08:00

Maxon motors and gears for Jaluro. Maxon motors and gears were also used by NASA during the Phoenix mission on Mars.

First Thruster Tests

2008-11-26T23:57:00.000-08:00

Team FREDNET members in Australia have been very busy building the first prototype of the Ground Hovering Test Vehicle. This video shows the first closed loop tests of one of the three thrusters mounted on the prototype, using compressed air, a single axis gyro, and a PID controller. Apparently, the PID controller software will need some tuning, but it's nice to see it moving :-)

You can follow the progress of the Team FREDNET Ground Hovering Test Vehicle in our public forum.

Team FREDNET partnership with Elphel, Inc.

2008-11-26T02:47:00.000-08:00

Team FREDNET is happy to announce to have established a longterm partnership with Elphel Inc. Elphel, Inc. was started in 2001 and is today a major provider and developer of flexible high-end imaging solutions providing high performance cameras and turn-key solutions based on free, open source software and hardware designs.

Freedom of the users is top priority to Elphel. Elphel values and protects this freedom with the GNU General Public License that covers all the Elphel software and hardware designs. This freedom extends from the convenience of the out-of-the-box usage of the cameras with the intuitive GUI to the possibility to modify any parts of them. It protects the user rights to create and distribute derivative products based on Elphel designs. Elphel's philosophy fits perfectly with Team FREDNET, since both work and live by the open source principles.

Elphel will provide camera systems to Team FREDNET who will modify and integrate them into the lunar rover prototypes that are currently under development.

Links:

From Rocket Fuel Tanks to Zero-G Coffee Cups

2008-11-25T16:17:00.000-08:00

It appears that STS-126 astronaut Don Pettit had some spare time Sunday to resume his Saturday Morning Science experiments, which he conducted during his previous stay on the ISS back in 2002/2003. This time he demonstrated an improved version of the Zero-G Coffee Cup inspired by techniques used in liquid fuel tank designs.

Video credit: collectSPACE.

You can find a video compilation of the very interesting Saturday Morning Science experiments here. By the way, did YouTube switch to HD during the weekend?

Team FREDNET Lunar Babies Club

2008-11-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

The average age in the Team FREDNET community is still getting younger with the recent arrival of Alexander Greyson Boyd, born 7 Nov 2008. The proud father, Kevin Boyd, is one of the earliest members of Team FREDNET. You have probably seen him in CNBC's coverage of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, which aired back in December 2007.

Rumours say that we can expect a few more new members in the Team FREDNET Lunar Babies Club within the next few months, this time from the European side. Is this the sign of a new baby boom coming? Or a simple indication that we have many young team members around the world? In either case we congratulate on the arrival of the first Team FREDNET Lunar Baby!

NASA Image of the Day

2008-11-15T13:15:00.000-08:00

NASA Image of the day this morning is a beautiful photo of space shuttle Endeavour lifting off from Kennedy Space Center into the night sky with the full moon in the background (click on the picture to get a higher resolution).

Image Credit: NASA/Troy Cryder

The ovjectives of the STS-126 mission is to prepare the space station to house six crew members for long-duration missions. More info on the mission including live transmissions and blogs on the NASA Sapce Shuttle site.

Jaluro: Just Another Lunar Rover

2008-11-14T22:55:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about having an open source community like ours is that members are free to work on their own ideas and concepts. They can form groups to study and explore the various ideas and concepts. At the same time the lessons learned are shared with the rest of the community.

Jaluro - Just Another Lunar Rover - is a two-wheeled rover concept by Tobias Krieger from Team FREDNET. Within a few weeks Jaluro evolved from an idea into a conceptual design and now there is very active development on the prototype for this rover. Thanks to the community, there are always good ideas and discussions on our forum. Everybody is welcome to join the Jaluro development!

Jaluro wiki portal: http://wiki.xprize.frednet.org/index.php/Portal:Jaluro
Jaluro discussions: http://forum.xprize.frednet.com/viewtopic.php?t=340

Wheel and Gearbox Design for WRV1

2008-11-10T22:04:00.000-08:00

Now that Jörg's rover concept has been demonstrated in the field the design goes on focusing on critical mechanical parts. These pictures show the design of the wheel and the gearbox. There are no ball bearings and no plastic parts on it!
Jörg's rover is called WRV1: Wheeled Rover Vehicle 1. You can follow and contribute to the development of WRV1 at http://forum.xprize.frednet.com/viewtopic.php?t=204

Rover Concept Prototyping

2008-10-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

This prototype rover was cobbled together by Joerg Schnyder as a proof of concept for Team FREDNET's lunar rover. Even though it is built completely out of reused parts, it performs quite impressively!

Slow Scan TV Transmission from the International Space Station

2008-10-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

Saturday at 10:05 UTC we successfully received a Slow Scan Television transmission from the International Space Station. The receiver chain consisted of the USRP+TVRX, GNU Radio software for demodulating the FM signal into audio, and the freely available Digital Master 780 for decoding the SSTV data.

The transmitted picture was taken with a camera onboard the space station looking out through one of the windows. NA1SS is the amateur radio callsign used by US astronauts while they are on the space station.

Richard Garriott has been very active on amateur radio ever since he arrived at the space station. Besides the SSTV activities he has been having voice contacts with schools and radio amateurs around the world. You can listen to Richard making voice contacts with radio amateurs in Europe in this recording.

VHF/UHF Receiver

2008-10-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

The picture below show a VHF/UHF receiver assembly based on the Universal Software Radio Peripheral and a standard TV-tuner. The board on the left is the S-band transceiver module described earlier.

The TV-tuner based VHF/UHF receiver can receive a 6MHz wide RF spectrum anywhere in the range 50-800MHz. It has a noise figure around 8dB, which is not good enough for Lunar comms; however, it is a good cheap starting point for breadboarding and experimentation. Using a modest yagi antenna and a low noise preamplifier, we have been able to receive signals from low Earth orbiting satellites.

Expedition 18 lift off

2008-10-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

Early this morning, Expedition 18 successfully lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft, carrying U.S. astronaut E. Michael Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Richard Garriott towards the International Space Station, is scheduled for docking to the Zarya module on 14 Oct 2008 around 9:30 UTC. NASA TV will provide live coverage of the docking event.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Richard Garriott - son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott - has a tight schedule carrying out scientifc research and educational projects. Amongst his plans is to have live amateur radio contacts with various schools around the world using his amateur radio callsign W5KWQ. His stay on the space station also coincides with the annual Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) event giving scouts around the world an opportunity to talk with astronauts onboard the station. Something that makes Garriott's trip particularly interesting for us is his plan to turn on the on-board slow scan television equipment that will perform automatic image transmissions in Robot-36 mode.

While slow scan television is not a technically feasible option for a Lunar mission nowadays (despite the fact that it was used by many of the early Lunar missions) this event will provide an excellent opportunity to test some of our early prototypes for ground equipment using real signals from space. The International Space Station is a very fast moving object and successful reception of the images will require proper tracking with directional antennas and active compensation for the Doppler shift, caused by the high relative velocity between the space station and the receiver on Earth.

There are many external factors that might prevent this experiment from being successful. The most significant is whether the slow scan television equipment will be turned on while the space station passes over our ground station and this is, of course, out of our control. In either case, we are very excited and are looking forward to this event.

Transceiver modules for the L and S bands

2008-10-10T23:32:00.000-07:00

The RFX1200 and RFX2400 daughterboards provide complete radio frequency transceiver interfaces for the Universal Software Radio Peripheral in the L and S bands. The receivers have an AGC range of 70dB. The transmitter output is around 200mW for the RFX1200 and 50mW for the RFX2400. The transmitter and receiver frequencies can be controlled separately (split mode) and the boards are also capable of full duplex operation.

Universal Software Radio Peripheral

2008-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

The Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) is an open source hardware device from Ettus Research and it is designed to allow general purpose computers to function as high bandwidth software radios. Its primary function is to serve as a digital baseband and IF section of a radio communication system. The basic design philosophy behind the USRP has been to do all of the waveform-specific processing, like modulation and demodulation, on the host CPU. All of the high-speed general purpose operations like digital up and down conversion, decimation and interpolation are done on the FPGA.

The USRP has four 64 MS/s 12-bit ADCs, four 128 MS/s 14-bit DACs, four digital downconverters with programmable decimation rates, and two digital upconverters with programmable interpolation rates. It uses a USB 2.0 interface (480 Mb/s) and is capable of processing signals up to 16 MHz wide. The modular architecture supports a wide variety of RF daughterboards as well as auxiliary analog and digital I/O.

Currently, Team FREDNET uses the USRP together with GNU Radio as an open source platform for prototyping and testing communication subsystems.

ESA’s View on Private Suborbital Spaceflights

2008-08-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of the ESA Bulletin has a very interesting article about the European Space Agency's view on privately funded space exploration. Although the scope of the article appears to be limited to space tourism and in particular suborbital flights, it is good to know that the agency has recognized the value and the potential in private space activities and seeks an active role in supporting it both on the technological and on the political levels. The article can be read online here: http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bulletin135/bul135c_galvez.pdf

Hopefully the other space agencies around the world have similar positive attitude towards private space exploration. Their moral support and encouragement of our activities will indeed be a prerequisite for successfully establishing global policies that will help us achieving our goals.

EAA AirVenture 2008

2008-08-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

I attended the Oshkosh Air Show this year. I was invited to make a Team FREDNET presentation for a GLXP Session on 2 different days. Our sessions were lightly attended, but it was an enthusiastic audience asking good questions.
The show is officially known as EAA AirVenture 2008. It was my first time, so I do not have a comparison. But I was impressed! Over 500,000 attending, 10,000 aircraft, 37,000 on site campers, a 2 hr professional air show every day,
special demonstration flights every day, 7 official days, all on 300 acres. and all accessible by attendees. Too many things to tell in one blog attempt. Certainly a highlight was the Rocket Racing League's first public flight of a racer.
There were many of my favorite planes on display. It IS a fly-in, so all the planes were operational. A U-2, the P-38 "Glacier Girl", the F-22, Sky King's plane (or a look-alike) doing aerobatics just like the TV show I remember as a kid, lots of WWII Warbirds, 2 electric! planes, and on and on. As I waited late Sunday evening in Manitowoc for the SS Badger, I reflected on the wide variance of energy for propulsion I encountered in 4 days... the F-22 ,most advanced plane in the world; the RRL Rocket Plane with a propulsion unit developed in the Lunar Lander Challenge; I drove by Wisconsin's largest Wind Farm and many fields of corn to be possibly turned into ethanol; and rode across Lake Michigan on a 50+ year old coal fueled, steam powered car ferry.

Check out some selected pics from the over 500 I took... http://picasaweb.google.com/rich911rt

www.eaa.org
www.teamfrednet.org
signup @ teamfrednet.org

1st Moon Landing 39th Anniversary

2008-07-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Today, July 20 1969, a man from Earth stepped onto the surface of the Moon.

- - -
The first manned spacecraft landing on the Moon was at 3:17 p.m. EST on July 20, 1969, when the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, the Eagle, landed in Mare Tranquillitatis, located at 0°4'5"N latitude, 23°42'28"E longitude. The Eagle landed approximately 50 kilometers from the closest highland material and approximately 400 meters west of a sharp-rimmed blocky crater about 180 meters in diameter.
- - -
from: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/

Team Frednet at CNN.COM

2008-06-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/06/20/google.lunar.xprize/index.html

This is a bit of a re-hash by CNN, but hey...
it is more media coverage

Phoenix Mars Mission lands this Sunday

2008-05-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Success! Phoenix has landed.
PBS TV has an hour long special on the Phoenix Mars Mission tonite Thur May 22 10PM EDT. It lands on Mars this coming Sunday, May 25, 7:53PM EDT (23:53:GMT).

Official Team FREDNET

2008-02-23T20:53:00.000-08:00

It is finally official: Team FREDNET is an Officially Registered Competitor for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. We participated in the Google/X PRIZE Foundation Announcement Event on Thursday, February 21, 2008, along with several other newly announced teams. I'll post some more about this event soon, right now I must get back to answering several hundred emails I've received from our Team Members, the press, friends, family, and well-wishers. For those who don't already know (in the press and otherwise) I am located near Silicon Valley in California, Rich Core is in Northern Michigan, and Dan Smith is somewhere in Colorado, near mountains. We have major working Group Leaders in Denmark (Alexandru Csete), US-Georgia (Robert Starr), Michigan (Kevin Boyd), California (Chris Clabaugh), and Australia (Andrew Burns, Ryan Weed).

Team FREDNET at Control Engineering Magazine

2008-02-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

We have a friend blogger at Control Engineering magazine...
see it here...

Team FREDNET In The News!

2007-12-29T18:07:00.000-08:00

Friday, December 28, 2007.

This morning, CNBC featured Fred Bourgeois of Team FREDNET, reporting on one of the newest members of the Google Lunar X Prize challenge. Fred Bourgeois and his team of engineers demonstrated remote control of their prototype rover vehicle. The team gave CNBC reporter Jane Wells the opportunity to control the robot from a laptop in San Jose, CA. The rover itself meanwhile negotiated a simulated lunar landscape in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The brief exhibition proved the feasibility of a remotely controlled vehicle across thousands of miles.
This sampling of upcoming developments demonstrated that Team FREDNET moves with great purpose toward the Lunar X Prize.

Related Information:

CNBC Television Report:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=616611054

CNBC's Jane Wells' Article:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/22421401

Rover Web Site and News Story:
http://www.surveyor.com/cgi-bin/robot_journal2.cgi/2007/12/28#135

Webmaster Needed

2007-12-07T13:50:00.000-08:00

Calling all WebMasters....

Team FREDNET is searching for a webmaster. We need someone familiar with web technologies, html, shtml, javascript, java, cgi, css, layout, and design who is willing to join our team as the principal designer and maintainer of all the content on all of the Team FREDNET web sites. Space enthusiasts are especially welcome and called to participate! This is an Open Source project.

If you are interested, please leave a comment here along with your contact details. (Email addresses should be in a robot-proofed format, and will be deleted after we have read them.)

Kevin Alexander Boyd joins the Team

2007-12-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

Kevin Alexander Boyd of the University of Michigan has joined Team FREDNET!
We are excited to have Kevin participate in our first prototype robotics development.

The Team FREDNET Forum Is Live

2007-12-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

The Forum is now live and ready for posting.

I am looking for a better faster method of deleting off topic users from posting to and joining the forum. Suggestions are welcome, please leave them as comments to this post.

Marcelo Siero Joins The Team

2007-11-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

Marcelo Siero has joined Team FREDNET. Marcelo will be participating in the hardware and software development portions of our first prototype robotic explorer.

Dusty Bleher Joins Team FREDNET

2007-11-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

Dusty Bleher has joined Team FREDNET! Dusty brings a wealth of software development experience and some truly innovative ideas on the transit portion of our journey to the Moon.

Team FREDNET Forum is now open for testing

2007-10-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

I have just now activated the Team FREDNET Forum at http://forum.xprize.frednet.com/ ... I also posted the zeroth-pass partial task list in the "Tasks" forum. This is just for testing right now for the kickoff team, I'll open it up to the world after we've mashed on it for a few days.

-Fred

FredNet: Mission Control

2007-10-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

"Earth to Luna, Earth to Luna, come in Luna".

Chirp... Chirp.... Chirp....

"Hey guys, we did it! It's responding!" The room erupts with cheers.

And so goes the story of the first Open Source team to put a live robot on the surface of Luna.

If you want to be part of this exciting team of crazy folks, sign on now. We need engineers, scientists, thinkers, and doers from all disciplines to help us make this happen. If you've ever dreamt of putting your own, personal touch on something in space, this is it. We're going for it!

We need your talent and ideas. Join the team today.

Dan Smith
Hardware Lead Engineer

(and a pretty nutty guy)

Team reporting in

2007-10-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers, this is Rich, the Software Systems Lead, reporting in. It is a pleasure to be invited as part of TEAM FREDNET. I have known Fred for years as both a friend and co-worker.
I have been around on this planet long enough to have been involved in the NASA Gemini project. My eye has always been on sky and space, so this is a very exciting project for me. Here we go to the moon!

Team FREDNET: The Blog

2007-10-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

Team FREDNET is the first and ONLY 100% open source entrant for the Google Lunar X Prize.

This is our project blog, where we host open discussions for those who are participating on our team - and that means you. Visit the official project web site at http://www.xprize.frednet.com/ for more details, or join the discussion here. We will post news about relevant updates to project specs, design notes, and source code on the blog.

Note that we also have a project forum (see the official project web site) used for discussing the constantly evolving project.

Our quest for the Lunar X Prize has begun!

--
Fred J. Bourgeois, III
Chief Executive Engineer
Leader, Team FREDNET
The First and ONLY 100% Open Source Entrant for the Lunar X Prize