The European Moon Rover System: a modular multipurpose rover for future complex lunar missions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a modular European Moon Rover System designed for diverse lunar missions, emphasizing adaptability, payload flexibility, and onboard autonomy to perform tasks like excavation, scientific deployment, and geological studies.

Contribution

The study presents a novel modular rover architecture capable of reconfiguration and multi-mission payload integration for complex lunar exploration tasks.

Findings

Developed a versatile modular rover platform.

Demonstrated payload reconfiguration for different missions.

Enabled autonomous operation for lunar tasks.

Abstract

This document presents the study conducted during the European Moon Rover System Pre-Phase A project, in which we have developed a lunar rover system, with a modular approach, capable of carrying out different missions with different objectives. This includes excavating and transporting over 200kg of regolith, building an astrophysical observatory on the far side of the Moon, placing scientific instrumentation at the lunar south pole, or studying the volcanic history of our satellite. To achieve this, a modular approach has been adopted for the design of the platform in terms of locomotion and mobility, which includes onboard autonomy, of course. A modular platform allows for accommodating different payloads and allocating them in the most advantageous positions for the mission they are going to undertake (for example, having direct access to the lunar surface for the payloads that require it), while also allowing for the relocation of payloads and reconfiguring the rover design itself to perform completely different tasks.