Author Topic: Astrobotic Technology Annouces Lunar Mission on SpaceX Falcon 9  (Read 130134 times)

Offline notherspacexfan

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Ok got you so, It's a fairing based mission. Any ideas on how large the lander is compared to the fairing diameter?

http://astrobotic.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Astrobotic-Payload-Specifications.pdf

Offline baldusi

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The internal space of the F9 fairing it 4.6m. The wides point of the lander seems to be 3.5m, that would give something like 45 cm of space to each side.

Offline Robotbeat

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Violating OSHA rules is what college is all about. "Do not look into laser with remaining eye."

It's all fun and games until someone gets their hair caught in the lathe...
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline baldusi

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I do wonder why do they use the lander's engine to do the TLI burn. The Falcon 9 can't do a TLI?

Online ugordan

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The Falcon 9 can't do a TLI?

Falcon 9 will do the TLI burn. What it can't do is an LOI burn.

Without going into another argument about what "2 restarts" for MVac actually means, the upper stage is dead within a couple of hours after launch, the batteries are dead and LOX probably boiled off.

Offline baldusi

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The Falcon 9 can't do a TLI?

Falcon 9 will do the TLI burn. What it can't do is an LOI burn.

Without going into another argument about what "2 restarts" for MVac actually means, the upper stage is dead within a couple of hours after launch, the batteries are dead and LOX probably boiled off.
You're right. I misread the mission graph on the Payload's User Guide.

Offline kevin-rf

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Violating OSHA rules is what college is all about. "Do not look into laser with remaining eye."

It's all fun and games until someone gets their hair caught in the lathe...

Nit, Do not look into Laser with remaining good eye...

(says the guy that had to break out the eye wash bottle last week because of the 40 year old Euphorbia Tirucalli next to the desk)

Not to nit, but not having a job the regularly involves playing with cranes, what are the obvious OSHA violations in the video? Does it involve the playing on and around it while it is suspended by a crane with no blocking to prevent it from crushing someone?
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Offline Jim

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Does it involve the playing on and around it while it is suspended by a crane with no blocking to prevent it from crushing someone?

Yep

Offline Patchouli

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Well, this is certainly going to be interesting. They are planning to use a commercial off the shelf intel atom board. They did some tests indicating that it can survive cryogenic temperatures. But surely the radiation environment on the moon would be a problem.

Quite. Latchups and other radiation effects could definitely make things "interesting" once in space.

They probably don't have much choice. They need some serious computing power for the realtime image recognition they plan to do. Using radiation-hardened computers with the performance of an intel atom would probably bust their budget.

I guess they will try to shield the processor as good as possible, try to make the software fault-tolerant, and hope for the best.

Maybe use also use a watch dog timer and reset the processor if it latches up.
The rest of the memory could be ECC which should offer some protection.
The Flash drives maybe run something like a raid 5.
They also could have a couple of more robust 8 bits uCs doing the actual flying.
The small uCs could maintain control if the main computer has to reboot and there are OSes that can boot in under 1 second.
« Last Edit: 06/28/2011 01:49 pm by Patchouli »

Offline kevin-rf

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Maybe use also use a watch dog timer and reset the processor if it latches up.
The rest of the memory could be ECC which should offer some protection.
The Flash drives maybe run something like a raid 5.

You make it sound like this isn't standard kit for anyone who does realtime OS's, I am sure they are already doing all of that and much more...
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Offline Robotbeat

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Maybe use also use a watch dog timer and reset the processor if it latches up.
The rest of the memory could be ECC which should offer some protection.
The Flash drives maybe run something like a raid 5.

You make it sound like this isn't standard kit for anyone who does realtime OS's, I am sure they are already doing all of that and much more...
Intel Atom doesn't support ECC. Flash drives (larger ones, at least... not usually thumb drives) generally has integrated RAID-like technology built into each device.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline baldusi

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They stae in the Payload Planners Guide that their computer is a BRE440.

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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The only thing that dosen`t meet deep space rad hard specs is the SD card.

Offline kevin-rf

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They stae in the Payload Planners Guide that their computer is a BRE440.

btw spec sheet: http://www.broadreachengineering.com/products/bre440-radhard-cpu/
If you're happy and you know it,
It's your med's!

Offline Downix

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They stae in the Payload Planners Guide that their computer is a BRE440.
Not a bad choice, not my personal choice.  I've dealt too long with PowerPC, honestly sick of them.  Give me a nice AT697F.
chuck - Toilet paper has no real value? Try living with 5 other adults for 6 months in a can with no toilet paper. Man oh man. Toilet paper would be worth it's weight in gold!

Offline Patchouli

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They stae in the Payload Planners Guide that their computer is a BRE440.

btw spec sheet: http://www.broadreachengineering.com/products/bre440-radhard-cpu/


That's good I think it would be kinda crazy to risk the mission using non rad hardened CPU esp one that does not support ECC memory.

The flash and ram are more likely to get struck by a high energy proton then the CPU.
There's more of them so they represent a much larger target.
« Last Edit: 06/29/2011 03:46 am by Patchouli »

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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The only thing that worried me about their design was the use on a SD card for mass storage that is not radiation hardend. The dram ECC memory they are using is also a rad hard version. GEO Sats use mag disk storage not flash because of their inherent rad tolerant storage medium. The basic difference between the two and the reason Astrobotic went with flash is weight, a few grams to several kilos.

Offline Patchouli

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The only thing that worried me about their design was the use on a SD card for mass storage that is not radiation hardend. The dram ECC memory they are using is also a rad hard version. GEO Sats use mag disk storage not flash because of their inherent rad tolerant storage medium. The basic difference between the two and the reason Astrobotic went with flash is weight, a few grams to several kilos.

They probably could use off the shelf SSD's or even SD cards in Raid 5 or 6.
Raid 6 would be the best since it's for mission critical applications.
This way the data should survive getting a few bits flipped by a cosmic ray or even one drive being rendered non functional.
It can be implemented in software if you are willing to take a performance hit.

Still the biggest worry I'd have is a latchup of the read write logic vs altercation of the flash memory.

Offline ChileVerde

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Apparently still going.

Quote
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/ground/astrobotic.html

Robotic Explorers May Usher in Lunar 'Water Rush'
11.15.12

The American space program stands at the cusp of a "water rush" to the moon by several companies developing robotic prospectors for launch in the near future, according to a NASA scientist considering how to acquire and use water ice believed to be at the poles of the moon.

"This is like the gold rush that led to the settlement of California," said Phil Metzger, a physicist who leads the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab, part of Kennedy's Surface Systems Office. "This is the water rush."

Collecting the water, or at least showing it can be collected, is where the Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology comes in. The small company signed on in April for the third phase of a Small Business Innovative Research deal that continues research work to develop technologies NASA may need to harvest space resources in the future.

The company already is far along in its development of a rover that will work on its own. There is a deal in place with SpaceX to launch a lander and rover on a Falcon 9 rocket in October 2015. Astrobotic is competing against several other companies for the Google Lunar X-Prize, an award worth up to $30 million funded by the Internet search engine company.

"Our intent is to land on the surface of the moon in October 2015 and find water," said John Thornton, president of Astrobotic.

<snip>
"I can’t tell you which asteroid, but there will be one in 2025," Bolden asserted.

Offline go4mars

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Looks like this disappeared from the manifest.  Anyone with knowledge care to post an elaboration? 
Elasmotherium; hurlyburly Doggerlandic Jentilak steeds insouciantly gallop in viridescent taiga, eluding deluginal Burckle's abyssal excavation.

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