This is the Home Blog for Team FREDNET, the first and only 100% Open Source Competitor for the Google Lunar X Prize. Here you will find updates and announcements about the Team, the projects, and the Team's related web sites and activities. This blog is primarily used for announcements from the Team Leaders.
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 :-)
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):
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 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.
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.
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?
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!
