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From: ME 243, Inc.
To: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Proposal to Design and Demonstrate Feasibility of Navigational Lunar Beacons
Michelle Pugh, Ryan Baggett, Hanum Jumastapha, Nick Boyer, Martha Hurley
Date: March 25, 2009
Technical Abstract
A beacon is to be designed to transmit and receive signals and withstand the extreme range of
temperatures on the moon. It must be compatible with a mechanical arm intended for use on the
moon and be tall enough to overcome signal obstruction due to the curvature of the moon. When
placed in a network, this beacon and others like it will provide the ability to determine position
on the surface of the moon, analogous to the way that GPS is used on Earth, thereby facilitating
lunar exploration.
Customer Identification
NASA is a federal agency whose purpose is to direct the identification, development, and
validation of exploration systems and technologies, explore the Earth-Sun system, our own solar
system, and the universe beyond, and to extend the duration and boundaries of human space
flight to create new opportunities for exploration and discovery. NASA has its headquarters in
Washington, D.C. and utilizes ten field centers and a variety of installations conduct the day-today work, in laboratories, on air fields, in wind tunnels and in control rooms.
Project Description
Past lunar exploration accomplishments included a fly-by and intentional crash landings of the
Ranger space craft by NASA in the early 1960's to gather image and mapping information. This
was followed by a soft landing of a space craft equipped with a scoop like robotic arm. This
craft provided information on the soil mechanics of the surface to allow the design of the human
landing system and the Lunar Roving vehicles which followed. Other than the Apollo missions
which brought back a limited quantity of surface material and data that was collected from
instruments left by the Apollo astronauts further lunar exploration has been limited to earthbased observation and data collected from orbiting systems on the Shuttle and other
satellites.1 NASA intends to return to the moon around the year 2020 to conduct further
exploration. Before this time, they would like to have a navigation system put in place without
the use of satellites. We propose to design a ground-based beacon, which will be organized in a
grid formation on the moon’s surface. Each beacon will emit and receive a signal which will
allow a lunar vehicle to triangulate its location. This will make is possible for lunar positioning
in the absence of lunar satellites and enable lunar navigation.
Statement of Work
The goal of the Lunar Exploration project is to create a beacon to be utilized for exploration on
the moon. This will require the design of the beacon to take two aspects into account:
distribution of the beacon and functionality of the beacon in the lunar environment.
The distribution aspect of the design will require knowledge of the lunar rovers and mechanical
arms currently in use or scheduled for use on the moon. The beacon will be designed to be
compatible with various mechanical grippers. The beacon will be designed to be compact for
transportation and yet stable when set in place.
The functionality aspect of the beacon design will require that the beacon can perform its
necessary functions in the harsh lunar environment. The beacon will have a method of energy
generation, energy storage, and a transceiver. Heating and cooling elements will be used to
moderate the temperature and keep the temperature within operation limits of all components.
Staff Biographies
Michelle Pugh:
Michelle Pugh is a Mechanical Engineering student at Vanderbilt University. She is from
Houston, Texas and is twenty-two years old. She will graduate in May of 2009 with a Bachelor
of Science degree in mechanical engineering and plans to work for Hamilton Sundstrand as an
air management systems engineer.
Martha Hurley:
Martha Hurley is a senior Electrical Engineering major at Vanderbilt University. She has
experience working with Matlab, NI LabVIEW, and NI ELVIS, and has taken classes in subjects
including Program and Project Management, Technical Communications, Digital Signal
Processing, and Control Systems.
Hanum Jumastapha:
Hanum Jumastapha is a senior Mechanical Engineering major at Vanderbilt University and is
originally from the Borneo Island in Malaysia. She has interned at two companies, the summer
after freshmen year at Brooke Dockyard and Engineering Works Corporation, a company known
for building offshore living quarters, and the summer after sophomore year at ASSAR Refinery
Services Sdn. Bhd., a palm oil refinery that caters for international export as well as local
consumption, both in Sarawak, Malaysia. Hanum spent a part of last summer in Melbourne,
Australia learning about Australian culture and water sustainability issues that continues to
plague the nation. She is currently a teaching assistant for ENGM 221: Introduction to
Engineering Management.
Nick Boyer:
Nick is a Senior Mechanical Engineer and a member of the NROTC. For summer training after
his sophomore year he was able to apply what he learned in school on an aircraft carrier, CVN
76 USS Ronald Reagan, and help repair several key components of the ship including the
catapult plane launcher and a bomb hoist. The following summer he interned with a small,
independently owned Mechanical Engineering company called Pro-Rac. He learned and utilized
SolidWorks CAD program to help the engineers give workable diagrams to the machine shop.
During his time with Pro-Rac, Nick also traveled with the Vice President of the company to
factories on the east coast and in the south and saw the sales aspect of engineering. Currently he
is working with a Masters student researching the tensile strength and wormhole propagation in
friction stir welding.
Ryan Baggett:
Ryan Baggett is a Senior Mechanical Engineering major at Vanderbilt University. He has taken
multiple classes in 3D solid modeling including Autodesk Inventor and ProEngineer and used
SolidWorks last summer in his internship. In his Junior year, Ryan was involved with research
investigating the use of the Tesla Turbine as a alternative power source for batteries. Ryan is
currently involved with a project which includes rapid prototyping of a scaled model of a
reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle and the wind tunnel testing of the model. Ryan has
worked as a pipe fitter, shop hand, and finish carpenter. Last summer, Ryan worked with the
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division in Chemical, Biological, and Radiological
Defense. He created 3 dimensional models of an advanced HVAC system capable of protecting
a ship from harmful contaminants, enabling the war-fighter to continue to carry out tasks without
hinderance.
Conclusion
A network of these beacons will enable NASA navigate effectively on the lunar surface. Lunar
rovers will be able to interpret signals from the beacons and determine their current location.
Spacecraft will be able to land on the moon without human direction. As a moon base is built,
these beacons will be useful for not only robots needing to traverse the surface of the moon but
also to astronauts needing to know where they are. It is a simple matter to construct more
beacons and expand the existing network when needed.
The lunar beacon has applications with NASA beyond the immediate exploration and
colonization of the moon. With modifications for environmental conditions, this beacon can be
used on Mars to begin the same process of exploration and habitation. Anywhere there is a solid
surface that needs to be navigated, whether on a new planet or an asteroid, these beacons will
prove to be useful. On a smaller scale these beacons can be used in mining facilities on Earth to
project a signal where GPS does not work, such as underground, thereby allowing autonomous
robots to complete their tasks with very little human intervention.