Lunar rovers for scientific and entertainment missions

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is developing robotic technologies and systems for lunar missions. The lunar mission currently being studied is a long duration, time and distance, excursion to revisit the landing sites of previous missions as well as to examine areas and features that were precluded in the previous missions. This mission will be far more than an exploration of a small territory; it is envisioned to be a grand tour of historic sites, interesting features, and unknown areas. A major focus of this mission will be to provide an interactive, live means to enroll public awareness, participation and support into lunar and space missions. To carry out the planned mission, the rover will traverse more than 1000 km, operate for at least two years, perform an array of scientific experiments, transmit more than two terabytes of data and provide entertainment for large numbers of people. To satisfy these goals, concurrent system engineering principals must be must be applied to the rover configuration, otherwise meeting the mission requirements and satisfying the engineering constraints may prove to be impossible.