Soft deployable airless wheel for lunar lava tube intact exploration

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Mechanical Engineering
• Planetary Science and Exploration
• Materials Science

Background:

• Lunar pits and lava tubes are prime candidates for human habitats due to natural shielding.
• Exploring these unique lunar environments presents significant mobility challenges, including steep slopes and cliffs.
• Current rover wheel technologies may not be optimized for the extreme terrain and conditions within lunar caves.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel soft, deployable airless wheel designed for lunar pit and lava tube exploration.
• To enhance rover stowage efficiency and mission flexibility through a high deployment ratio.
• To overcome the mobility challenges posed by steep and uneven terrain in lunar subsurface environments.

Main Methods:

• Design and fabrication of a reconfigurable reciprocal wheel structure using elastic steel strips in a woven helical pattern.
• Integration of shape transformation capabilities while maintaining load-bearing capacity.
• Experimental testing of the wheel's performance on various terrains and its resilience to simulated lunar impacts.

Main Results:

• The wheel demonstrated successful traversal of 200-millimeter obstacles.
• Stable mobility was achieved on rocky surfaces and lunar soil simulants.
• The wheel exhibited resilience to drop impacts simulating a 100-meter descent under lunar gravity.
• The wheel can be stowed at 230 mm and deployed to 500 mm, allowing for efficient rover packing.

Conclusions:

• The developed deployable wheel is highly suitable for future lunar pit and cave exploration missions.
• The wheel's design offers enhanced safety for vertical descents and mitigates damage from falls.
• Minimized reliance on delicate components makes the wheel robust for extreme lunar conditions, improving mission reliability.