Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Carnegie Mellon tests Scarab on Mauna Kea

As reported in late summer, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, in partnership with NASA, is preparing for rigorous testing of its Scarab lunar lander on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

"Scarab was designed and built for NASA's Human Robot Systems program by Carnegie Mellon. It serves as a terrestrial testbed for technologies that would be used to explore craters at the moon's southern pole, where a robot would operate in perpetual darkness at temperatures of minus 385 degrees Fahrenheit. The rover features a novel rocker-arm suspension that enables it to negotiate sandy, rock-strewn inclines and to lower its 5 ½-foot by 3-foot body to the ground for drilling operations. Scarab weighs 400 kilograms (about 880 pounds) and can operate on just 100 watts of power."
Read more HERE.

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