CMU Assists Local Company's Bid To Win $20M By Landing Rover On Moon
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It's called the Andy, the latest robot from Carnegie Mellon University, a lunar rover that could someday roam the surface of the moon.
"This is a prototype for what we call the Andy rover, a small light-weight rover that we've been developing to go to the moon to explore," explains CMU graduate student Jon Anderson.
It's CMU's contribution to a major effort undertaken by a local company in the Strip District called Astrobotics which KDKA-TV money editor Jon Delano featured last May.
"We're going to carry payloads to the surface of the moon," says Astrobotics CEO John Thornton. "We're like a UPS or FedEx to the moon."
With CMU's help, Astrobotics is competing in an international competition sponsored by Google to encourage private companies to develop space exploration.
"It's a $20 million prize to drive 500 meters on the moon and send back about 15 minutes of video," notes Kevin Peterson, Astrobotics' CTO.
That's challenging because of the moon's inhospitable environment -- but the Andy should be up to the task.
"It's a lot smaller, lighter, and more capable for its mass than previous ones," notes Anderson. "it can pretty much drive on any terrain we would expect to encounter on the moon."
Astrobotics is developing the vehicle -- the lunar lander -- that will get the Andy from the earth to the moon's surface.
While the competition is keen, the Pittsburgh team believes it could make this city a center for space exploration.
"Pittsburgh really is an amazing place for this kind of work," notes Astrobotics COO Steven Huber.
"Carnegie Mellon has really brought about a big technical growth in this city, but it's also nice that we have the industrial background -- the aluminum, the steel -- everything that really built up Pittsburgh," Huber adds.
"We will turn Pittsburgh into a space-faring city," declares Thornton.
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