Experimental Study of Lunar Rover Wheel's Motion Performance on Korean Lunar Soil Simulant

We report the surface exploration by the lunar rover Yutu that landed on the young lava flow in the northeastern part of the Mare Imbrium, which is the largest basin on the nearside of the Moon and is filled with several basalt units estimated to date from 3.5 to 2.0 Ga. The onboard lunar penetrating radar conducted a 114-m-long profile, which measured a thickness of ∼5 m of the lunar regolith layer and detected three underlying basalt units at depths of 195, 215, and 345 m. The radar measurements suggest underestimation of the global lunar regolith thickness by other methods and reveal a vast volume of the last volcano eruption. The in situ spectral reflectance and elemental analysis of the lunar soil at the landing site suggest that the young basalt could be derived from an ilmenite-rich mantle reservoir and then assimilated by 10–20% of the last residual melt of the lunar magma ocean.

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Experimental study of wheeled forms for lunar rover on slope terrain

9th IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Motion Control, 2006. ◽

10.1109/amc.2006.1631669 ◽

2006 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

K. Iizuka ◽

Y. Sato ◽

Y. Kuroda ◽

T. Kubota

Keyword(s):

Experimental Study ◽

Lunar Rover

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Interaction between Lugged Wheel of Lunar Rover and Lunar Soil by DEM with a New Contact Model

Earth and Space 2012 ◽

10.1061/9780784412190.018 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ming-jing Jiang ◽

Xin-xin Wang ◽

Min Zheng ◽

Yong-sheng Dai

Keyword(s):

Lunar Soil ◽

Contact Model ◽

Lunar Rover

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Analysis on the Movement Effect of Lunar Rover Wheel

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.307.211 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 307 ◽

pp. 211-214 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Da Wei Jin ◽

Jian Qiao Li ◽

Shi Chao Fan ◽

Hao Li ◽

Yang Wang

Keyword(s):

Lunar Soil ◽

Test Results ◽

Lunar Rover ◽

Movement Effect ◽

Motion Resistance ◽

Soil Bin ◽

Passing Ability ◽

Drawbar Pull ◽

Driving Torque

It is important to analyze mechanical relationship between lunar wheel and lunar soil for studying passing ability of regolith in lunar soil. Mechanical relationship between lunar wheel and regolith could be reflected by these parameters such as sinkage, drawbar pull, driving torque, motion resistance and slip when the lunar wheel moves. Thus, it is necessary to analyze these parameters of lunar wheel by soil bin test. The test results show that, the four parameters increase with slip and loading, except motion resistance of the test wheel which is under 70N at the speed of 25mm/s. The variations of the four parameters are not significantly influenced by velocity. The variations of the four parameters are significantly influenced by loading.

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