The first electric space exploration vehicle to set foot on extraterrestrial ground was the Lunar Roving Vehicle. This mobile lunar vehicle had a mass of 210 kg and 4 wheels, which allowed it to explore the Moon for several kilometers around the landing of the Apollo spacecraft. From there until today, the rovers have reached Mars, one already has propellers, but the popular ones have wheels.
The path of evolution of these vehicles, essential parts sent by humanity to the soils of other planets and moons, passes not by rolling, but by levitating.
What if on the Moon it levitated instead of rolling?
The moon is covered in regolith, a layer of sharp, crushed rock that could pose a threat to future landing missions by damaging spacecraft and putting astronauts in danger. While key industry players work hard to design more durable and efficient wheeled vehicles, engineers from WITH they propose a solution that does not even involve touching the surface of the Moon.
So, as we can see, MIT is working on developing a vehicle that can levitate above the rugged lunar terrain.
But how would that be possible?
Engineers say this can be done using the "Moon's natural charge". This natural charge refers to an electrical shell that forms on celestial bodies that lack an atmosphere, like our Moon or asteroids, for example.
Since they have no atmosphere, sunlight reaches their surface without being trapped by any additional gases. On our Moon, this causes the dust to be electrostatically charged by the Sun and actually takes off for more than 1 meter above the ground.
The effect is similar to rubbing a balloon into your hair and then slowly moving it away.
The vehicle proposed by MIT makes use of this positively charged surface. More specifically, it uses ion thrusters to generate a repulsive force that should be enough to levitate a vehicle weighing almost 1 kg on the Moon. The thrusters would also serve to charge it.
A rover that looks more like a UFO
To put their concept into practice, scientists began by creating a small "tea-cup saucer"-type vehicle with thrusters that emit negative ions. As a result, the vehicle gains a positive charge and sends this force against the lunar surface. However, that was not enough to make it go up.
Then they added some propellants that generated positive ions to boost the natural charge. Using a 50-kilovolt source and this second model, engineers calculated that a small vehicle could lift 1 centimeter above the ground. Of course, the greater the tension, the greater the force produced.
In principle, with better modeling, we could levitate to much higher heights.
Says aerospace engineer Paulo Lozano.
This is just the basis for a more complex design. However, if successful, future missions to the moon and asteroids could use vehicles with ion thrusters to safely navigate through the rugged terrain.
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