White Label Space

Nano-Spacecraft Specialist Christos Merkouris Joins Team

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:21:00 +0000

It is widely believed that space exploration is set to experience a revolution due to nanotechnology, and Christos Merkouris has joined White Label Space to advise the team on how best to take advantage of the new technologies that are becoming available in this area.

Christos is a Master of Science candidate at the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of Surrey in the UK, and is also an experienced spacecraft test and verification engineer. In his university research Christos has been investigating the state of the art in nano-spacecraft systems, particularly focusing on the CubeSat standard and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). His research also included mission analysis-orbit modeling and system engineering of a CubeSat mission.

CubeSats are 10cm cubes built to a standard set of interfaces and design requirements. This standard has led to the development of a family of spacecraft that are small and simple enough even for university student teams to build and operate their own space mission.

Simple CubeSats can be a cheap way of testing new systems in a real space mission scenario (i.e. "space qualifying"). Examples include telemetry, telecommand and data acquisition (i.e. especially effects of delay and disturbance), ground station design and implementation, formation flying, and attitude determination. Such systems, once tested in CubeSat missions, can be implemented in more advanced space missions with lower risk.

So far CubeSats have flown on a number of different launchers, namely Dnepr, Eurockot, Kosmos 3M, Minatur, PSLV and M-V. To date there have been a total of twenty two successful or partially successful CubeSat missions and twenty failures (14 of them due to launcher failures). Today there are numerous organisations around the world developing CubeSat missions and the number of missions is set to increase rapidly.

In his research, Christos has also been studying plans for future space missions using MEMS. Researchers such as the MEMSat-1 team in China and ISIS in the Netherlands are currently developing designs and experiments to prove that MEMS can dramatically reduce the mass of future satellites. Considering the high costs of launching payloads to space, MEMS and other nano-technologies offer the possibility of dramatically reduced costs for space missions.

It is becoming clear that these micro and nano systems can replace all the subsystems of satellites including central computers, communications, power, propulsion, attitude control and inertia measurement units, as well as payload instruments.

The benefits of such technologies for planetary exploration are obvious. Savings in mass and size will translate directly into smaller spacecraft and propulsion stages, allowing small and cheaper launchers to be used. The White Label Space team is dedicated to proving that exciting space exploration missions, like our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission, are now in reach of the private sector, and Christos' experience will be highly valuable to make this vision a reality.

Further reading on CubeSats:

How to Build a Radar Altimeter

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:26:00 +0000

If you are interested in how to build a low-cost radar altimeter for a lunar lander, then keep an eye on the work being done by Lee Begg from Lunar Numbat, our open design partner down under.

Lee's work is an open design, published for all to see on the Lunar Numbat Twiki site. He also started some radar design calculations on the github site. The calculations are in the form of python scripts and Lee plans to implement these in a breadboard demo of the radar altimeter, probably based on a Blackfin processor. Below is a block diagram of the concept.

Lee Begg lives in Wellington, New Zealand, and in his day job works as a software developer for Harmonic. He and has a Masters degree from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch in Computer Science and Software Engineering.

Rover Wheel Traction Testing

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:02:00 +0000

White Label Space team member Farnoud Kazemzadeh recently completed a research project with our Partner, the Tohoku University Space Robotics Laboratory, which has advanced facilities for testing the performance of wheel designs. The topic of his project was the wheel-soil interactions of the rover we are designing for our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) mission.

The interaction of wheels or tracks on loose soil has been well investigated in the field called terramechanics, and understanding it is one of the most crucial steps of designing a new wheel or traction system. Since soil characteristics greatly affect the effectiveness of the mobility system it is very important to understand the planetary surface's properties. In soft soils, loss of traction due to excessive wheel slippage can lead to wheel sinkage and ultimately vehicle entrapment. The Moon's relatively low gravity leads to soils with lower confining stresses, and hence bearing strength, than soils on Earth. To be accurate, tests conducted on Earth must accurately simulate the lunar soil's mechanical properties.

Farnoud conducted the tests in a sandbox containing simulated lunar regolith that closely matches the properties of the lunar soil. This lunar regolith simulant was created based on samples returned by the Apollo missions. Using this sandbox the performance and behavior of the wheel assembly can be tested in a condition which very closely replicates the conditions on the Moon. The sandbox is capable of being tilted to simulate the rover climbing a slope.

In this research project, Farnoud tested three candidate wheel designs shown below. One wheel has a bare outer surface, one wheel has spikes of length 9mm and the third wheel has spikes of 18mm.

For each wheel design, three main parameters were measured in the experiments; the slip ratio, the drawbar pull and the torque.

The slip ratio is given by the equation;

SlipRatio = 1 - (D_measured/D_theoretical)

Where D_measured was the actual distance travelled (measured by a ruler) and D_theoretical is the distance that the wheel should have traveled if there was no slippage (derived from the encoder counts). Each run was conducted three times and an average of the slip ratio with uncertainty was calculated.

Drawbar pull is the amount of force that is exerted by the motor axle minus the rolling resistance between the wheel and surface in the direction of travel. For any given wheel and solid system the drawbar pull depends a function of slip ratio for different traveling speeds.

When the slip ratio is increased, drawbar pull also increases. This is because the larger slip ratio results in the larger soil deformation, hence inducing larger drawbar pull.

The torque was measured to determine the power requirements for the motors that drive the wheels.

The above parameters were measured for a range of slope angles and wheel rotation speeds. Through the experiments it was observed that the wheel with the 18 mm long spikes had approximately 30% less slip ratio for the same drawbar pull than the other two wheels, verifying the expected result that spikes help to increase the wheel-soil traction.

Researchers at Tohoku University will continue to experimentally investigate other options for increasing the traction such as using a larger wheel diameter or deformable (compliant) wheels to have increased contact area. Based on their results, the White Label Space team will design and thoroughly test a mobility system that is suitable for the terrain expected at our GLXP landing site (see also: Where Shall I Land my GLXP Mission?).

Farnoud Kazemzadeh conducted this research project at the Tohoku University Space Robotics Laboratory whilst undertaking his Master of Space Sciences at the International S p ace University in Strasbourg, France. He previously completed a Bachelor of Science specialized in Astrophysics at the University of Waterloo in Canada and is currently a candidate for the Master of Applied Sciences in System Design Engineering at the same university.

Wikipedia Page for WLS

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Today I finally got around to building the wikipedia page for White Label Space.

Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Label_Space

The GLXP Panorama in One Shot

noreply@blogger.com (White Label Space) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:22:00 +0000

White Label Space team member Nathan Britton recently undertook a research project at our Partner the Tohoku University Space Robotics Lab in Japan, on the design of a panoramic camera system for our Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) rover. Panoramic cameras use a curved mirror to capture a full 360 degree image. An example of such a mirror and the image it produces is shown below.

This approach is a more mechanically simple configuration than a camera system that incorporates pan-tilt mechanisms. Mechanical simplicity is highly desirable on space missions since it reduces the number of failure modes and the effort during design and test of the hardware, ultimately reducing the cost of the GLXP mission.

The objective of Nathan’s project was the preliminary design of a panoramic camera system that can fulfill the GLXP mission requirements for a full 360 degree panoramic still shot at peak resolution and at least 60 degrees vertical with minimum peak spatial resolution of 0.3 milli radians/pixel.

In order to satisfy the spatial resolution requirement with a mirrored panoramic camera an imager with a resolution of over 75 Megapixels would be required. A commercial supplier was identified for a space certified, ultra-HD CCD with 9216x9216 resolution.

A commercial supplier was also identified for a curved mirror to take full 360 degree panoramic shots with a 75 degree vertical window.

Using these two hardware options, the (average) spatial resolution can be calculated as;

150deg * (_/180) = 2.618 rad
2.618 rad / 9216 px = 0.000284 rad/px
0.000284 rad/px = 0.284 mrad/px

This combination of hardware therefore exceeds the GLXP requirement for spatial resolution (0.3mrad/px).

Nathan, pictured in the image at the right, has a double bachelors degree in Information and Computer Sciences and Japanese from the University of Hawaii, and has now completed his Master of Space Studies degree at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. His research interests are Artificial intelligence developer for robotic exploration vehicles, Human-Computer Interaction and Game Programming. He is fluent in the Japanese language and is currently studying French and Russian.

Mond 2.0 auf Deutsch

noreply@blogger.com (White Label Space) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:10:00 +0000

Wir haben das Google Lünar X PRIZE Video Mond 2.0 auf Deutsch übersetzt. Man kann die Untertitel nun über das Menü rechts unten im Player aktivieren.

AOES Group BV Specialist Space Engineering Support

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:26:00 +0000

PRESS RELEASE

FOR RELEASE: 31st August 2009

Dutch Firm AOES Group BV Partners with White Label Space Team in

$30 Million Google Lunar X PRIZE

Noordwijk – The Netherlands, White Label Space has announced its newest Partner, AOES Group BV (AOES). AOES is a well-established supplier of specialist engineering services to the European Space Agency (ESA) with a long track record dating back to 1980. AOES will contribute to White Label Space’s no-name space mission to land on the Moon, which will provide massive media exposure and sponsorship opportunities for the world’s biggest brands.

White Label Space is one of nineteen teams around the world competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a competition for privately-funded teams to send a robotic mission to surface of the Moon and transmit a data package including photos and HD videos back to Earth.

AOES staff will undertake work packages for the White Label Space team, providing specialist support for design and analysis tasks related to the structures, thermal and propulsion subsystems of the Lander and Rover. Additionally, AOES MediaLab will develop captivating media content promoting the White Label Space team.

The Chief Executive Officer of AOES Group, Paul Pearson, said about the partnership “Europe will play a major role in the upcoming wave of lunar missions. Partnering with a team as strong as White Label Space gives AOES an entry on the technical challenges facing these upcoming missions. AOES sees a unique opportunity to exploit future business based around the new technologies that White Label Space is developing for the mission. We look forward to a rewarding partnership with White Label Space”

Under the partnership agreement AOES is also providing office space and infrastructure to support the team’s technical headquarters in the Netherlands, the venue from where White Label Space core engineering team coordinates its global network of technical Partners.

The White Label Space team leader, Steve Allen, commented “We are very pleased to have AOES join us as a Partner. It is a good example of how well-established space companies are starting to realize the benefits of being involved in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. By joining early, AOES is getting a chance to stake its claim to some of the great commercial opportunities within the consortium that we are building to execute our mission.”

AOES is the sixth Partner to join the White Label Space team. The five existing Partners are:

The Swiss Propulsion Laboratory (SPL) which is developing a low-cost engine for the landing stage of the White Label Space mission. SPL has long experience developing cheap and reliable rocket propulsion systems for numerous customers. SPL has a rocket motor test bench located on the same site as its workshop and engineering design offices, enabling rapid and extensive testing of its engine designs.
The Space Robotics Lab at Tohoku University in Japan which will work with White Label Space to design a Moon rover for the mission. The lab is led by Professor Kazuya Yoshida and has contributed to numerous Japanese space missions including the Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission.
JAQARsoftware.com is White Label Space's partner for orbital design and mission analysis. JAQARsoftware.com provides quality, easy-to-use intelligent software tools that allow its customers to solve complex spaceflight problems such as satellite trajectory optimization in short time on everyday desktop PCs. Clients include many of the top space companies and agencies across Europe, the USA and Asia.
Lunar Numbat is a team of Australians and New Zealanders who are using their skills and Open Source technologies to develop new software and electronic hardware in support of the White Label Space mission.
Wroclaw University of Technology's Institute of Telecommunications, Teleinformatics and Acoustics which has extensive experience developing aerospace communications equipment including the Amateur Radio for the ISS (ARISS) antenna which is now flying on the European Columbus Module of the International Space Station.

About AOES Group BV

The AOES Group is an international engineering services and consultancy provider with over 100 employees. AOES provides large and small customers in the space, aircraft and offshore industries with technical support in the areas of Engineering Services, Information Technology, and Visual and Technical Communication.

AOES is a well-established supplier of niche engineering services to the European Space Agency (ESA) with a long track record dating back to 1980. AOES also has an aircraft engineering team specialized on the analysis of complex structures for customers in the aerospace industry including EADS/Airbus. The MediaLab branch of the AOES Group produces Technical and Visual Communication products such as 3D visualizations and animations as well as 2D graphic design and multimedia for the space and life sciences industries. MediaLab is highly regarded for its abilities to transform technical subjects into visually appealing images and movies. The AOES Group also includes an IT Services team that has been a pioneer in implementing server-based/thin-client installations within the European Space Agency for over 15 years.

AOES is an abbreviation for Advanced Operations and Engineering Services. [www.aoes.com]

About White Label Space

White Label Space joined the Google Lunar X PRIZE in May 2009 and is comprised of people from many nationalities, including England, Netherlands, Australia, United States, France, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Norway and Portugal. The team’s name originates from the concept of a “White Label” product which is a generic brand, developed by one company and then sold to another brand. White Label Space sees the Google Lunar X PRIZE as the beginning of the next wave of space exploration where the common person can become a contributor and not just a spectator. [www.whitelabelspace.com/2008/01/about-us.html]

About the Google Lunar X PRIZE

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is an international competition organized by the X PRIZE Foundation which previously ran the Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital space vehicles. The Google Lunar X PRZIE calls for privately-funded teams to compete in successfully launching, landing, and then traveling across the surface of the moon while sending back to Earth specified photo and other data. The PRIZE will award US$20 million to the first team to land a robot on the moon that successfully travels more than 500 meters and transmits back high definition images and video. There is a $5 million second prize, as well as $5 million in bonus prizes for challenges such as traveling long distances, photographic images of man-made objects on the Moon, detecting water ice or surviving a lunar night. The $20 million first-place prize is available until December 31, 2012, and then it drops in value to $15 million until December 31, 2014. [www.googlelunarxprize.org]

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Interview by SpaceFellowship.com

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:55:00 +0000

What's the difference between Investors, Partners and Sponsors?

Read our answer to that question and also learn about other aspects of our team's business plan in this interview by SpaceFellowship.com.

Stay tuned also for a new Partner annoucement, coming very soon!

Mark Bentley

noreply@blogger.com (White Label Space) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:55:00 +0000

Dr Mark Bentley is a planetary scientist at the Space Research Institute (IWF) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS) and has experiece working on many previous and planned space science missions with international partners from around the world. He has a passion for space science and in particular the scientific exploration of the Moon.

A specialist in the fields of Space Weathering, in situ instrumentation and data analysis, Mark's PhD research investigated the process of space weathering as it might occur on Mercury through a series of laboratory experiments. His postdoctoral research work at Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute of the UK's Open University focussed development of the HP3 gamma-ray backscatter densitometer (DEN) originally proposed for ESA's BepiColombo Lander (MSE).

In this video Mark explains the science benefits you can expect from our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission and future missions that will be made possible with the technologies that we are developing for landing on the Moon and moving across its surface.

Paint Your Ad Message on the Moon with Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:04:00 +0000

This video by MoonPublicity.com shows a concept for displaying advertising messages on the Moon's surface with the imprints created by a rover with special wheels using the patented Shadow Shaping Technology.

The MoonPublicity.com business model is best summarised by this paragraph on one of the pages of their website:

"Let’s suppose it would cost a billion dollars to create and send a fleet of Shadow Shaping robots to the moon, the project would pay for itself in less than 3 years after completion. Over the next 50 years it would generate 18 billion dollars worth of advertising. And since there is no atmosphere on the Moon, the image could last for thousands of years."

I'm not sure how they will deal with all the craters, not to mention the lunar conservationists!

See also the interesting comments on the Gizmodo article about this project.

Apollo 11 - 40 years ago today - man's first step on the Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Allen) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Today it was 40 years ago that Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. This event changed not only the face of history but also what man believed was possible to achieve.

In honour of this day here's a video of the actual event.

Apollo 11 Lander Photograph from Lunar Orbit

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:12:00 +0000

A lonely shadow cast across the barren surface of the Moon is evidence of humanity's greatest space adventure. This photo taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (currently orbiting the Moon) shows the Apollo 11 landing site, "Tranquility Base".

The Apollo 11 lander descent stage is the bright spot with angular features at the left end of the elongated shadow. This man-made creation was left on the Moon when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin departed in the Apollo 11 ascent stage on the 21st of July 1969 after spending 21.6 hours on the surface.

The large crater to the right of the lander is also clearly identifiable in an image taken on the Moon's surface by Armstrong (below).

More images including other the Apollo landing sites are available at NASA's LRO Page.

Study Predicts $1.5 Billion Market for Commercial Lunar Services over Next Decade

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Allen) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:04:00 +0000

PRESS RELEASE: Thursday, July 16, 2009
Source: X Prize Foundation

Playa Vista, CA (July 16, 2009) – A study performed by the Futron Corporation, an aerospace consultancy based in Bethesda, MD, predicts that companies such as those competing for the Google Lunar X PRIZE will be able to address a market in excess of $1 billion over the course of the next decade. The results of the study resonate with the expectations of the X PRIZE Foundation, which conducts the $30 million competition that challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch privately funded spacecraft capable of exploring the lunar surface. The market projection demonstrates the breadth of commercial opportunities that companies are likely to pursue either during or after the conclusion of their Google Lunar X PRIZE missions.

The study, which involved a detailed examination of the 19 teams already registered in the competition, as well as a robust analysis of potential lines of business, identified six key market areas: hardware sales to the worldwide government sector, services provided to the government sector, products provided to the commercial sector, entertainment, sponsorship, and technology sales and licensing. Taken together, the study projects the value of these markets to be between $1 - $1.56 billion within the next decade. Additionally, some Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors have set their sights on additional market sectors that fell outside of the scope of the Futron report, which could result in an even higher total market size.

The breadth and the size of these projected markets are attributes of a new era of lunar exploration quite different from the Apollo era. “The glories of the first Moon race were accomplished with only two real developers and two real customers—the national space programs of the United States and of the Soviet Union,” said William Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes at the X PRIZE Foundation. “Now, we’re entering a new paradigm – Moon 2.0 – that features an enormous variety of innovators each trying to serve a wide range of customers. National space programs such as NASA’s will certainly benefit, but so will academia, the general public, and the economies of those nations where teams step up to meet the challenges of lunar exploration. That breadth of impact will make Moon 2.0 much more sustainable and longer lasting than the first era of lunar exploration”

"We examined a wide range of markets that teams could address, both those that exist today and those that could be enabled by low-cost commercial lunar exploration," said Jeff Foust, a senior analyst with the Futron Corporation. "If one or more teams are able to win this prize competition, they will be able to serve markets potentially far larger than the prize purse."

For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE and the teams currently registered in the competition, please visit http://www.googlelunarxprize.org. High resolution photographs, video and other team materials are available upon request.

ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE
The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured the world’s attention when the Burt Rutan-led team, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation, with the support of its partner, BT Global Services, is creating prizes in Space and Ocean Exploration, Life Sciences, Energy and Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as a leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org.

Steve Allen

noreply@blogger.com (White Label Space) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:09:00 +0000

Steve Allen is the Team Leader of White Label Space.

Steve brings his strong knowledge of the media industry to the White Label Space effort, helping the team to communicate its vision and progress to future sponsors & investors. He is an avid space technology enthusiast that also has an in depth knowledge of new media, social media, PR & outreach. His professional background is in project management, media distribution & asset management.

Currently Steve a Director for Joost Technologies, an Internet start up that was the first company to bring true high quality video via secure P2P & was also the first company to partner with many of the major global content providers. The company lately refocused to lower the barrier of entry to the platform & will now be concentrating on becoming an end to end white label video distribution service provider. His responsibilities at Joost have been to manage Transcoding & Archiving operations, Video R&D, Business Support & End User Support teams.

Valve Controllers, Data Compression and Altimeters

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:39:00 +0000

Our open source partner Lunar Numbat is dedicated to developing low-cost solutions for mission-critical systems in our GLXP mission. Here are three specific projects they are currently investigating:

Valve Controller

A key component in a lunar lander is the valve that controls the throttle setting of the engine used for the descent to the lunar surface. Lunar Numbat has started developing a design for an Arduino board to communicate with the electric motor and the valve position sensor.

Lunar Numbat plans to test its new valve controller design on AUSROC 2.5, a sounding rocket currently being developed by the Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI). The valve, gear assembly and electric motor are shown in the picture.

The Arduino board will run embedded C++ software and use a modular event driven protocol called Aiko. Aiko embodies the embedded controller and device side of a modular framework and generic event-driven communications protocol. There will also be a host-side design and implementation of that protocol. The valve controller will interface with the rest of the control system via a CAN bus.

Video Compression

Lunar Numbat is working on an idea to use JPEG2000 for rapid on-the-fly video compression. JPEG2000 offers certain advantages compared to other data formats in that it makes it possible to compress the data stream by dropping layers. Lunar Numbat envisions an approach based on concurrent data prioritization, optimized be a 'task based' approach.

Already Lunar Numbat has found in experiments have shown that a 3MB image can have its sized reduced by a factor of four in just half a second. In the near future Lunar Numbat will post an example of the video compression to the internet.

Radar Altimeter

The Chandryaan-1 Moon Impact Probe (MIP) inspired Lunar Numbat to look into developing a simple radar altimeter based on commercial technologies. The MIP featured a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave radar altimeter capable of measuring the altitudes up to about 5km above the lunar surface.

Lunar Numbat aims to use software defined radio technology to implement its solution and hopes to test the altimeter on a cheap flying vehicle such as a balloon or remote control aircraft.

About Lunar Numbat

Lunar Numbat is a distributed organization based in Australa and New Zealand, which was created to develop open source hardware and software solutions for the White Label Space GLXP team. A number of Lunar Numbat members are also members of the Melbourne-based Connected Community HackerSpace, another more general open source group, which allows Lunar Numbat to build upon experience from hardware and software developed for non-space applications.

Relax to a lunar flyover

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:48:00 +0000

Hard day at work?

Turn on some classical music, sit back and watch this amazing footage from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA's Vision for Human Space Exploration

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:43:00 +0000

This excellent promotional video by NASA is a captivating and clear explanation of its vision for human space exploration in the coming decades, a vision embodied by the Constellation Program. The first phase of the program starts with utilization of the International Space Station in Earth orbit. That is followed by long duration missions to the Moon's surface then eventually human exploration of Mars.

The video does mention the troubled Ares-1 launch vehicle but it does explain the role of the Orion spacecraft which will carry four astronauts after the Space Shuttle is retired. The video also shows the critical role that education plays in promoting and developing future space activities.

Preliminary Landing Site Considerations

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:27:00 +0000

The International Atlas for Lunar Exploration by Phil Stooke (also available on our website’s Amazon.com carousel widget) shows the landing sites proposed by the Euromoon 2000 team. These are located at peaks of eternal light near the Moon’s south pole. In the Atlas Stooke also suggests other nearby landing sites with rover routes into the permanently shadowed zones.

We are considering targeting our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission for landing at or near one of those sites since they offer great potential for winning the Water Bonus Prize. Finding a useful deposit of water ice on the Moon would revolutionize space exploration by making a permanently manned lunar base more likely, and we would like to offer our sponsors the chance to be part of such a discovery. Talking about our sponsors, we would also like to offer them exciting video and photography. The Moon’s south pole region is a prime location thanks to its rugged landscape and dramatic shadowing.

There are also interesting scientific benefits of landing in this region including the opportunity of inspecting samples of the South Pole-Aitken impact basin in the ejecta of more recent smaller craters. We intend to reserve a certain amount of mass on our Google Lunar X PRIZE for such customer payloads.

However, landing at a peak of eternal light is quite difficult. Firstly, the polar areas of the moon are typical highland regions which have rough terrain, putting more demands on hazard avoidance and the stability and of the landing craft at touchdown. A mare region would be less demanding in that respect.

An even greater difficulty is the need for a precision landing capability. Missing the landing target at a peak of eternal light by even a few hundred meters could leave the craft in a shadowed area where solar panels cannot generate power, or in a 'communications shadow' where line of sight radio transmissions cannot reach the Earth, leaving relay by a lunar orbiting satellite as the only option for communications.

No robotically guided craft has ever soft-landed on the Moon with the required level of precision to ensure permanent sun illumination at a peak of eternal light, and there are complicated navigation challenges that still need to be solved before that technology becomes available. Remember, there is no satellite navigation system at the Moon with which the lander can determine its position, nor are there any road signs or beacons pointing out the runway!

Considering that landing anywhere on the Moon is already a difficult challenge, we are now focusing our efforts on defining a baseline mission with a landing in a mare region. Mare regions are much flatter than highland ones and this simplifies the landing system design. However, much of the mission architecture and the subsystem designs for a mare landing could also be used for a mission targeting more difficult locations so we will keep open the option to upgrade our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission in the future.

Eventually we will make our landing site selection based upon our assessment of the technical risks, considering also the needs of our potential sponsors and the level of interest in the scientific community for the respective options.

What is White Label Space

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:00:00 +0000

We have been preparing a Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) team since March of 2008. At first we didn't have a team name or even a vision for how we would approach the GLXP. At that time, we were united only by the common belief that the time had come for privately-funded space missions to the Moon and further destinations.

As we started work on our business plan, we realized that the GLXP is all about reaching out and engaging the general public so one of the first things we did was establish this White Label Space blog. Through this blog we have explored some of the commercial aspects of the GLXP including space advertising, our brand image, interesting news about space that impresses the everyday person (outside the space industry), recognition of our early partners, and even some speculation about how Star Trek would win the GLXP!

In parallel to the early blogging, we formed an engineering team to start developing the early concepts for our GLXP mission. So far we have progressed quite far in our preliminary design but we still have to do an enormous amount of work before we can see our GLXP mission blasting off towards the Moon.

In the coming weeks and months we will gradually introduce our team members and more details of our technical plans. Of course, we will have to keep some of the technical aspects confidential - this is a race after all!

From this blog post, the most important thing you should take away with you is the meaning of our team name. Our team leader Steve Allen, invented the "White Label Space" name during a brainstorming session on the 22'th of June 2008.

A "White Label Product" is a brandless (or generic) product provided ready for branding by another company. Some well known examples of white label products are supermarket goods, records, websites and electronics. Companies with a strong brand image use white label products in order to save the costs and risks of developing new products. In a similar way, White Label Space is a brandless Moon 2.0 space technology start-up, with the "product" being a complete space mission ready to win the GLXP.

Although the cost of access to space is decreasing, space missions are still very expensive and the most simple GLXP mission will have a cost in the many tens of millions of dollars. Our team of dedicated and passionate space engineers, together with our strong technical partners, will bridge the funding gap by developing the necessary technologies and designs in-house, and using the internet to promote our progress and test results.

When we are ready, we will sell our white label space mission to one or more of the biggest brands in the world, who will replace our White Label Space brand with their own brand/s, and together we will take part in humanity's next great step to a sustainable presence on Moon.

White Label Space Joins Google Lunar X PRIZE

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Fri, 08 May 2009 09:36:00 +0000

Team White Label Space was formed back in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE. With a strong background in space engineering and knowledge of the costs involved, the group realized that there were numerous global companies that could finance its Google Lunar X PRIZE mission with less than 10% of their yearly advertising expenditure.

Like the early Apollo missions, the winning Google Lunar X PRIZE mission will reach billions of people. By reaching this audience, White Label Space will offer an unprecedented advertising opportunity and will create strong and enduring brand associations for international companies operating in industries such as technology, automotive, telecommunications, transportation and finance.

From its Global Headquarters in the Netherlands, White Label Space will continue to build strong partnerships with companies and organisations around the world, particularly those that are interested in stepping into the space market or expanding their existing market share. Making maximum use of web technologies, White Label Space will provide an integrated promotional platform that showcases the partners' capabilities and products. By cooperating in the development of the White Label Space Google Lunar X PRIZE mission, the partners will also develop new technologies and products that can be reused in future space missions.

By extensively using social media to engage the public at large, White Label Space will reach beyond the space-enthusiast community and inspire people from all walks of life to join its exiting journey of discovery and adventure.

Team Composition

The team is comprised of people from many nationalities, including England, Netherlands, Australia, United States, France, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany, Norway and Portugal. The core team consists of eight members, Steve Allen, Robin Biesbroek, Marina Petrozzi, Andrew Barton, Kazuya Yoshida, Juergen Schlutz, Mark Bentley and Ayako Ono. Another 40 collaborators and advisors support the core team

The founding members of Google Lunar X PRIZE Team White Label Space include members of the Lunar Explorers Society (LUNEX) and participants in the Euromoon 2000 project, a European Space Agency (ESA) plan for a lunar surface exploration.

LUNEX is an international space advocacy organization that aims to promote the exploration of the Moon for the benefit of humanity. LUNEX members believe that the Moon is the next and most important step in the human exploration of the solar system and are dedicated to help achieve this goal through furthering international cooperation, outreach activities and general enlightening of the public. In pursuing this aim LUNEX hopes to bring the benefits of the Moon to all people on Earth through a sustainable exploration process.

Euromoon 2000 was an initiative of the European Space Agency (ESA) in the 1990s that aimed to land a robotic craft on the rim of the Shackleton Crater at the Moon's south pole in the year 2000. The efforts to develop the Euromoon 2000 mission plan were led by the Dutch Astronaut Wubbo Ockels, who assembled a team of over 25 engineers and scientists from ESA and industry to make a preliminary mission assessment study, building upon some related studies that took place in the preceding years. ESA was not able to find the budget for the mission but the efforts and progress made at that time are relevant to any European team wishing to compete in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

Approach

The White Label Space team's goal is to appeal to investors by assembling a strong international technical team capable of winning the Google Lunar X PRIZE. White Label Space sees the creation of strong partnerships as a key element of this vision. Parters will benefit by showcasing their technology, products and capabilities on the international stage. To build an effective team, White Label Space will focus on interoperability and will develop interchangeable and modular designs that will lead to new interface standards for low cost space missions. This open and collaborative approach is analogous to what the internet revolution has done for business and the shift away from closed proprietary standards to open ones, where anybody can contribute and benefit.

White Label Space recognizes the enormous possibilities of the internet to share knowledge and organize information, to realize international collaborative projects more ambitious than ever attempted before. White Label Space intends to use the latest such internet technologies and will continue to update and modernise its internet infrastructure, looking to emerging internet technologies such as cloud computing for use with distributed project collaboration.

Partners

Today, White Label Space has five official partners developing different technologies and equipment for its Google Lunar X PRIZE mission;

AOES Group BV is an international engineering services and consultancy provider with over 100 employees. AOES provides technical support in the areas of Engineering Services, Information Technology, and Visual and Technical Communication. AOES staff will undertake work packages for the White Label Space team, providing specialist support for design and analysis tasks related to the structures, thermal and propulsion subsystems of the Lander and Rover.
The Swiss Propulsion Laboratory (SPL) is developing a low-cost engine for the landing stage of the White Label Space mission. SPL has long experience developing cheap and reliable rocket propulsion systems for numerous customers. SPL has a rocket motor test bench located on the same site as its workshop and engineering design offices, enabling rapid and extensive testing of its engine designs.
The Space Robotics Lab at Tohoku University in Japan will work with White Label Space to design a rover for the Google Lunar X PRIZE mission. The lab is led by Professor Kazuya Yoshida and has contributed to numerous Japanese space missions including the Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission.
JAQARsoftware.com is White Label Space's partner for orbital design and mission analysis. JAQARsoftware.com provides quality, easy-to-use intelligent software tools that allow its customers to solve complex spaceflight problems such as satellite trajectory optimization in short time on everyday desktop PCs. Clients include many of the top space companies and agencies across Europe, the USA and Asia.
Lunar Numbat is a team of Australians and New Zealanders who are using their skills and Open Source technologies to develop new software and electronic hardware in support of the White Label Space mission.
Wroclaw University of Technology's Institute of Telecommunications, Teleinformatics and Acoustics has extensive experience developing aerospace communications equipment including the Amateur Radio for the ISS (ARISS) antenna which is now flying on the European Columbus Module of the International Space Station.
White Label Space is continually looking to form new partnerships with capable partners from all over the world and discussions are currently under way with three other potential parters.
White Label Space sees this as the beginning of an adventure that has far reaching consequences for all of humanity. For us the GLXP is the starting point of the next wave of space exploration where the common person can become a contributor and not just a spectator.

Ikegami Camera Shows Full Earth from Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Sun, 03 May 2009 10:11:00 +0000

This video shows what the surface of the Moon looks like in HD. The footage was taken by a special HD camera developed by Ikegami currently orbiting the Moon onboard the Japan's Kaguya spacecraft (also called SELENE). The camera design is a customised version of the HDL-40, modified by Ikegami to withstand the high radiation, vibration and thermal environment of space.

AGI Makes North Korea Space Launch a Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:27:00 +0000

This video courtsey of Analytical Graphics Inc. shows what North Korea's recent satellite launch attempt might have looked like.

Officials from the US and South Korean governments announced that the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 satellite failed to reach orbit, and this was later validated by an official statement by the Russian Space Control who could not detect the clamined satellite in orbit. Russia however does intend to help North Korea launch future satellites according to this ITAR-TASS aritcle.

Well, too bad for North Korea, but in any case, thanks to Analytical Graphics, we have this great ring-side seat view of what the action would have looked like!

Note the first stage falling in the waters before Japan's land territories, and the second stage falling in the ocean long after passing Japanese territory. According to the wikipedia article the first stage impact point was within Japan's exclusive economic zone but outside its territorial waters.

It's a pity that in this verison we don't see one of those US missiles coming up to intercept it ;-)

The claimed North Korean satellite is absent from the United Nations Online Index of Objected Launched into Outer Space however North Korea did complete its accession to the Convention on the Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space.

Control Your Car by iPod

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:30:00 +0000

Some of the latest tinkerings by Jon Oxer, a member of our parter Lunar Numbat...

It's all about synthesis of technologies. It's not hard to imagine how similar ideas can be applied to our Google Lunar X-PRIZE mission.

Why NASA's Budget Can't be Reduced

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Barton) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:05:00 +0000

When 10,000 jobs are at stake, lawmakers start to listen. As reported in this article in Parabolic Arc, the big 5 space primes in America have ganged together to point out that NASA needs to accelerate its development of the next generation of space exploration vehicles, otherwise a lot of skilled labor will be forced to find work in other industries.

It is nice to see the specific reference to the Altair lunar lander in the plans that industry wants to start working on. Interestingly however, they don't refer to the Ares-1 launch vehicle which has recently suffered a 6 month delay.