Over the past 60 years, scientists have gotten to know the lunar surface in incredible detail.
But how about what’s underneath the surface? Hidden beneath the moon’s layers of dusty
regolith are lava tubes. These subterranean spaces offer scientists hope that we could
one day use them for building lunar colonies, but they’ve never been explored before….at
least not yet. That’s where Asagumo comes in.
-Asagumo is the first walking rover that will be sent to the moon in the next year.
-Asagumo is the latest rover from Spacebit, a space robotics company based in the United
Kingdom. Its set to launch onboard the UK’s first mission to the moon and will be the
first rover ever sent to explore the lunar lava tubes.
-It's small. It weighs just 1.5 kilos and its main uniqueness is it uses legs instead
of wheels. -We’ve used massive wheeled ‘bots as our
means of exploration for years. So why is it time to move into a design with legs?
-We really believe that legs would provide Asagumo a possibility
to travel through rough terrain.
Lava tubes will present a much more rugged landscape
than the moon's exterior.
-Basically, a lava tube is just a long cave
made by lava a long time ago. On Earth we can find lava tubes as well. We really hope
that lava tubes could be used as a really nice place for a sustainable human lunar base.
This lava cave should protect from temperature, from radiation, from small meteorites, and
other potential things that can harm humans. -Because no one has had a chance to explore
these lava tubes yet, there are still many unknowns. But we think they’re there because
of the steep pits or skylights we’ve spotted on the moon’s surface.
Asagumo will be tasked with identifying whether any of these suspected caves could be a suitable
future home for humans. But as Asagumo prepares to take one giant step for robotkind, you
might be wondering: how will its design help meet this ambitious goal?
-The main goal is to walk for 10 meters.
And during that walk, we will gather telemetry and a lot of data.
-But there are so many variables when tackling a design
that involves so many moving parts. (Literally).
-Legs consume a lot of power. You have to have really fancy algorithms that are responsible for stabilization.
So the legs in Asagumo have three degrees
of freedom, and it means that each leg has three motors. So in general, everything makes
the mission really complicated.
-But one of the ways the Spacebit team has
helped alleviate some of these issues is by having Asagumo walk using a specific static
gait, or walking style, that it can adjust depending on the
kind of environment it’s in.
-It moves one leg at a time and at any given point in time, the robot
can just stop moving any legs and it will stand still. The main disadvantage of this
type of gait is that it's really slow. And the main benefit is that it's really stable.
Even though it’s tiny, the rover still packs a punch. Asagumo has an onboard computer,
Lidar system, radiation and temperature sensors, multi-spectral camera, memory card, Wi-Fi
link, and a single 4 Watt solar panel.
Also, in case I forgot to mention, the team outfitted Asagumo
with some artificial intelligence to make it semi-autonomous.
-Semi autonomous means that it has some degree of autonomy but it's
not able to plan the full mission by itself.
So when we are talking about fully autonomous
we are talking about achieving certain goals.
For example, we can say “Hey, walk there.”
-While all of this sounds—and possibly looks— like science fiction,
this is just the beginning.
-The first mission will be a...technical demo.
And after that, we hope that we will be able to send up to four Asagumos in one mission.
And we hope that in five or 10 years, the moon will be inhabited by a lot of small Asagumos.
-In addition to being a first for the UK, this mission could be a game changer
for establishing lunar colonies on the moon.
I know when this launch comes around,
I’ll be keeping an eye out for all of the big discoveries made by this little bot.
Did you know that the moon is just about 30 Earths away from us?
So close, yet so far away.
Be sure to subscribe to Seeker for all your lunar updates
and thanks so much for watching!
I’ll see you next time.