i-SAIRAS2020-Papers (2020) 5058.pdf THERMAL MODELING AND DESIGN OF A MICRO-ROVER FOR LUNAR POLAR EXPLORATION Virtual Conference 19–23 October 2020 Paulo R.M. Fisch1, Jasmine M. Bitanga2, William L. Whittaker3 1Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA, E-Mail:
[email protected] 21Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA, E-Mail:
[email protected] 31Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA, E-Mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT MoonRanger is an autonomous micro-rover that will explore the south pole of the Moon for lunar ice in 2022. It will fly aboard the Masten XL-1 lander on a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mis- sion. The cryogenic cold of a shadowed pole is chal- lenging for any rover. This is vastly more so for a micro-rover that lacks the thermal inertia and regula- tion capabilities of its larger counterparts. This pa- Figure 1. Artistic illustration of MoonRanger per details the thermal design, modeling, and analysis Source: Mark Maxwell of MoonRanger. It also assesses the validation of the Moreover, the rover’s thermal conditions are strongly viability of the thermal control of micro-rovers at the dependent on its position relative to the sun, which lunar poles for future missions. directly impacts autonomy and route planning. Fig. 2 1. INTRODUCTION shows a top-down view of the reference frame for azimuth angles (훗) and a side view for elevation an- Planetary rovers are historically large, controlled by gles (휭).