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Audi is taking on an entirely new type of challenge: a mission to the moon. The company is assisting an engineering group called Part-Time Scientists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE contest.
The space travel competition has been organised for engineers and business enterprises worldwide, and it offers approximately $30 million in prize money. Audi is supporting the lunar expedition with its expert knowledge … and the Audi lunar quattro.
To win the competition, a team – which must be at least 90 per cent privately-financed – needs to transport an automated vehicle to the moon.
Competition rules state that this rover must drive at least one-half km distance on the moon and transmit high-resolution images and video footage back to Earth.
In addition, the lunar vehicle with the Audi lunar quattro must launch into space by the end of 2017 aboard a launching rocket that will travel over 380,000km to the moon.
The trip takes five days. The target landing zone is north of the moon’s equator, close to the 1972 landing site of NASA’s last manned mission to the moon, Apollo 17.
In this region, temperatures fluctuate an enormous 300 degrees Celsius; when the sun is shining, it gets up to 120 degrees Celsius due to the lack of an atmosphere.
The Part-Time Scientists’ rover prototype has already won two prizes known as Milestone Prizes in the competition. These prizes, which carry a monetary value of $750,000, were awarded by the competition jury for development of the rover and its optical systems.
The Berlin-based researchers are continually refining their lunar vehicle, and extensive tests have been conducted in mountains and deserts.
Many of the rover’s components are made of high-strength aluminum, and it weighs 35kg. A swivelling solar panel captures sunlight, and the electricity it generates is fed to a lithium-ion battery that powers the four-wheel hub motors. All four of the wheels can be rotated 360 degrees.
The theoretical maximum speed is 3.6km/h – but more important on the rugged surface of the moon are the vehicle’s off-road qualities and safe navigating abilities. Two stereo cameras that acquire detailed 3D images are mounted to a moving head at the front of the vehicle. A third camera is used to study materials and it generates extremely high-resolution panoramic images.
The Audi working group, including Jorge Diez, head of the concept design section, that is assisting the Part-Time Scientists, currently consists of 10 employees from different technical departments and are using their expertise about the quattro permanent all-wheel drive system and the electrical e-tron drive system.
The goal here is to further enhance performance by making additional improvements to the electric motors, power electronics and battery.
The Google Lunar XPRIZE started with 34 teams, and 16 groups remain today. The Part-Time Scientists team is 70-strong. Experts from three continents support the team, including former leading NASA employee Jack Crenshaw. Assisting the group, in addition to Audi, are numerous research institutes and high-tech companies.
