Abstract

The Lunar Micro Rover (LMR) Project is a multi-year endeavor that began its journey in the summer of 2006. The LMR will be the first of its kind to be designed, programmed, and engineered entirely by high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from around the nation. The project expects to enhance NASA’s capacity to deliver micro-payloads, explore the lunar environment, extend deployments, and operate remotely – performing visual, thermal, position, and radiation sensing. In addition to meeting these expectations, a significant measure of success will be the LMR’s cost-effectiveness.

The radiation team’s challenge is taking into account the LMR’s exposure to the varying types, strengths, and levels of radiation while traveling from low earth orbit, traversing the Van Allen Belts and the interplanetary medium. In addition to its life on the lunar surface. Sources of ionizing radiation stem from solar particles events (SPE), galactic cosmic rays (GCR), and trapped radiation within and along Earth’s magnetic field. The LMR electrical components will fail if not hardened against these forces. Mission success depends on a firm knowledge of radiation levels, which must be anticipated and predicted for the life of the rover.

Mentor

Mark Leon

Lab site

NASA Ames Research Center (ARC)

Funding Acknowledgement

This material is based upon work supported by the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0952013. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation or the National Science Foundation.

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