Scaled WRV1 wheel design for the Jaluro lunar rover

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.