The MoonRanger A-team invested a quarter century of effort in 2021. The impressive accomplishments positioned MoonRanger for successful build, test and delivery in 2022. 2021 highlights included:
Mechatronic
- Crafted the composite flight chassis
- Machined some flight components at CMU
- Procured sensors, devices, actuators, and other flight components
- Documented assembly procedure
- Built a device for precision testing of bolted joints and established standards for robot assembly
- Built a flight-like solar array and co-populated that with solar cell vendor
- Built and tested a flight-like wheel module
- Created a flatsat that connected flight avionics
- Designed printed circuit boards and prototyped and tested some first versions
- Printed a full-size dimensionally correct 3D model of MoonRanger for crafting and fitting the MLI
- Determined camera lens characteristics and relative camera positioning
- Developed a mount that positions the cameras, lenses, camera electronics and sun glare shroud
- Developed ‘Terrammule’ as a moon-weight equivalent for MoonRanger-equivalent mobility testing
Software
- Wrote over 750 commits and 25,000 lines of flight code
- Selected and implemented NASA Core Flight System (cFS) as a flight code backbone
- Designed and implemented inter-process communication in cFS
- Progressed significantly with Mission Control Software
- Programmed embedded motor control
- Designed health monitoring and communication protocols
- Exhibited terrain model fusion and rover planning
- Created and characterized performance of slip-compensating state estimation
- Solved challenges of perception in darkness
- Simulated rover in an extensive lunar environment with realistic sensing
Designs
- Produced hundreds of flight hardware drawings
- Designed compact avionics module
- Mapped all electrical connections among components as basis for harness implementation
- Mapped rover’s wire harnessing… twice
Tests
- Used ‘Terramule’ to perform a moon-like mobility evaluation test campaign
- Characterized visible terrain in lunar lighting
- Conducted numerous vibe tests
- Tested thermal conduction in vacuum
- Verified vacuum, thermal, and vibration survivability of perception hardware
Reviews and Operations
- Passed Critical Design Review
- Resolved lander power interface challenges
- Built and certified a cleanroom
- Conducted paper missions with mission control software
- Created global path planning of ice targets on Slope/Ice/Combined Maps
- Prepared flight phase statement of work and budget proposal with cost tracking of current budget phase
- Automated/streamlined required systems processes and documents for final acceptance review
- Advanced lander, payload, and internal interface control documents for integration
- Instituted more realistic and resilient scheduling including final integration and test campaign
- Captured initial lessons learned from the first autonomous lunar microrover program for future missions