Welcome back! Now that I’ve talked about our project, I have come back to provide an optimal prototype to solve this dilemma. Just to recap, here is our definition statement and our intention statement, and a statement about how we will test for said intention:
Definition Statement: A team of astronauts need a form of transportation that is able to efficiently cover a minimum round trip distance of 5km from point A to point B. This form of transportation must be able to overcome the 3% Earth gravity of Ceres, below -105°C temperatures, rocky terrain and make the most of its limited power sources.
Intention Statement: Our vehicle is intended to test the mobility and navigation, energy efficiency, durability and material integrity, and communication systems of crewed vehicles in extreme extraterrestrial environments.
Success Statement: We will measure our success based on the extent of functionality and overall efficiency of our vehicle in simulated environments.
To test our success, we will be measuring energy efficiency by measuring how much kWh we use to travel each kilometre and comparing it with other pre-existing electrical vehicles. “Functionality” is a very broad term but was mainly the prevention of any major problems like the vehicle falling upside down, machinery failure, or the vehicle just not functional in the first place (e.g. the design won’t move in real-life situations). Functionality will also mean measuring how easy it can traverse through the terrain because the large change in terrain elevation and how rocky Ceres is could make our vehicle useless depending on it’s performance.
List of Possible Ideas (not including final idea)
- Jet propulsion/Hovercraft
- Spider legs
- Tank tracks
- Pogo stick/Hopping mechanism
- Car with rolling spheres as wheels
- Track-wheel hybrid for traction
- Drill based anchor system (drags itself forward)
- Other ideas were eliminated due to being too irrelevant or just bad in general
Rough Sketches:
Throughout the brainstorm process, my group and I found it difficult to make our vehicle because there wasn’t much to go off of as there weren’t many pre-existing manned vehicles that have driven outside of Earth, let alone the harsh environment of Ceres.
Ceres is a very rocky planet that’s also abundant in craters so we needed to make a vehicle that can handle change in altitude without falling over. Many of our possible ideas such as a hovercraft or hopping mechanism would be very hard to execute with these parameters.
Final Product:
We based the wheels off of the Rolligon tires, which can easily go over rocks without tilting the vehicle too much.
As you can see, the rolligon tires were designed with low pressure or psi (pounds per square inch) inside them, so the tires mold to the object that they’re rolling over and don’t tilt the vehicle as much, preventing the vehicle from rolling on it’s back. Along with a soft suspension, this will pair perfectly with the high altitude changes and rocky terrain of Ceres.
Here is our final product in a mechanical drawing with its bill of materials, which is basically just a big monster truck. We ended up deciding to add divots on each wheel to get a bit more traction, but the functionality should still be similar.
Extra Equipment:
Staying prepared is a must if we’re travelling millions of kilometres away from any form of civilisation, and having the right equipment is the best way to do that. On top of our vehicle, we will need basic life-support such as astronaut suits, first aid kits, food, oxygen tanks and with water filtration/storage. We will also need a backup generator in case anything goes wrong with the power system and a basic toolbox for maintenance.
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