TRAILER

Tandem of Rover and Associated Wain for Lunar Extended Roaming

Artist drawing of the separated TRACTOR system entering a lava tube on the lunar surface (Image: Liquifer Systems)
Artist drawing of the separated TRACTOR system entering a lava tube on the lunar surface (Image: Liquifer Systems)

Project details

Principle concept of TRAILER: TRACTOR subsystem separates from WAIN and climbs down a steep slope to sample soil in crevasse on the a lunar surface (Illustration: COMEX SA)
Subsystems of TRAILER as imagined in the preliminary design phase (Image: COMEX SA)

The main objective of the TRAILER project is to develop a compound rover system consisting of (i) an agile and powerful rover, the so-called TRACTOR subsystem, equipped with high performance locomotion and navigation, local wireless transceiver, short-term energy storage, sample acquisition system, and (ii) an active trailer, the so-called WAIN subsystem, equipped with limited locomotion and navigation, high power generation or storage and local wireless network that could assure lunar-earth communication and host a scientific laboratory for sample collection and analysis.

The main purpose of the TRAILER project is to develop and test a novel architecture of robotic exploration vehicles for coming lunar surface missions. A combination of a versatile rover that can dock and undock from a larger carrier vehicle might have several advantages in coming mission scenarios where on one hand large areas have to be traversed and on the other hand specific spots need to be explored - spots that might be hard to reach such as craters with steep slopes, or permanently shadowed regions.

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last updated 11.09.2024