2010 NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate: Lunabotics Mining Competition Systems Engineering Paper

A fast growing approach in determining the best design concept for a problem is hold a competition in which the rules are based on requirements similar the actual problem. By going public with such competitions, sponsoring entities receive some of the most innovative engineering solutions in a fraction of the time and cost it would have taken develop such concepts internally. Space exploration is a large benefactor of such design competitions as seen by the results of X-Prize Foundation and NASA lunar excavation competitions [1]. The results of NASA's past lunar excavator challenges has led the need for an effective means of collecting lunar regolith in the absence of human beings. The 2010 Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) Lunar Excavation Challenge was created to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, in a competitive environment that may result in innovative ideas and solutions, which could be applied actual lunar excavation for NASA. [2]. The ESMD Challenge calls for teams use telerobotics or autonomous operations excavate at least 10kg of lunar regolith simulant in a 15 minute time limit [2]. The Systems Engineering approach was used in accordance with Auburn University's mechanical engineering senior design course (MECH 4240-50) develop a telerobotic lunar excavator, seen in Fig. 1, that fulfilled requirements imposed by the NASA ESMD Competition Rules. The goal of the senior design project was have a validated lunar excavator that would be used in the NASA ESMD lunar excavation challenge.