RSS- The battle for Ocheretyne
- Supreme Court oral arguments to be heard on April 25 about presidential immunity for official acts
- Nasa’s Voyager-1 sends usable data from deep space
- The Wondrous Oak
- Three Seas Summit: Vilnius 2024
- Tit for tat until it all goes boom
- Deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain detected on mainland Antarctica
- “BYD is launching its next-gen Blade EV battery soon with more range and even lower cost”
- Iran launches air attacks on Israel
- ISW on the developing Ukrainian defense industrial base and Russias strikes on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure
The level of “train how you fight” is way up there with these wheels. Used rocks as close as possible to the Moon, tested almost 200 scenarios, traveled 2X the distance needed and improved minor flaws detected. It should be rolling around there for years.
Looking at the NASA page for the VIPER mission and can see why the wheel tests are so rigorous. The mission calls for a 4X4 rover to cover 10 to 15 miles at the south pole in conditions harsher than Mars. The mission profile calls for at least some of the route to carry the rover to the far side. NASA may want to look at another terrain model to simulate the far side.
“The first rover to visit the far side of the moon, China’s Yutu-2, [Jade Rabbit] has found stark differences between there and the near side. These include stickier, more supportive soil on the far side and a greater abundance of small rocks and impact craters.”
“The researchers, who declined to be interviewed for this article, found that the rover didn’t slip and skid as much as it would have been expected to do on the moon’s near side, indicating that the far side was relatively flat. The soil also appeared to readily stick to the rover’s six wheels, which means it is probably more consolidated and supportive.”
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2305223-yutu-2-lunar-rover-finds-sticky-soil-on-the-far-side-of-the-moon/#ixzz7Jh2isEiX