Modeling and vehicle performance analysis of Earth and lunar hoppers
Name
712069782-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
12.58 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
d50f52307af610a985e283927a19c067
Author(s)
Middleton, Akil J
Advisor(s)
Jeffrey Hoffman and Stephen C. Paschall II.
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Planetary hoppers-vehicles which travel over the surface as opposed to on it-offer significant advantages over existing rovers. Above all, they are able to travel quickly and can overcome terrain obstacles such as boulders and craters. The Next Giant Leap team in the Google Lunar X- PRIZE competition plans on utilizing hopper technology for its design, but they have little from which to work. In fact, although hopper-like vehicles have been created and flown, none have been used to serve specifically as tools for planetary exploration. Thus it is clear that prototyping and modeling will have to be done in order to gauge the feasibility of such a system. To support this effort, this thesis provides a look into the performance of hopper technologies through modeling and simulation. It begins by using the Hop Tradespace Tool to examine the two fundamental hop trajectories, determining that although there is a fuel savings with the ballistic hop, the hover hop is more desiresable for testing. This result is then applied to a preliminary mission analysis for the TALARIS prototype vehicle. Finally, the Earth TALARIS and its lunar version are modeled in 3-DOF simulation and it is discovered that, even with error and uncertainty, TALARIS closely emulates what would be expected to be seen on the Moon.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-112).
Subjects
Aeronautics and Astronautics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
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