Lander Legs and Feet

Designing Lander Legs and Feet can be a tough challenge!

The Rocket City Space Pioneers (RCSP) team has presented a new design challenge to students at the Huntsville Center for Technology (HCT). The task involves exploring concepts for lander leg and foot designs. I met with HCT students and their Computer Aided Design (CAD) instructor, Mike Evans, and provided performance requirements andreviewed their realy concept designs.

The design of the lander's legs and feet are shaped by a number of constraints.

These include:

  • Weight
    Lander legs must remain lightweight since they are considered to be wasted mass up until the time they are needed. Any extra mass carried to the lunar surface means that more fuel will be required to deliver the lander there.

  • Simplicity
    The simpler the design and function, the higher the likelihood of successful performance. The use of levers, actuators, and mechanisms is risky and involves increased testing and analysis.

  • Gravity
    The differences between gravity on the Moon and the Earth must always be considered. Testing of the lander will take place on the Earth where the acceleration due to Earth’s gravity is 32.2 ft/sec2 and that of the moon is 5.31 ft/sec2.

  • Impact
    The lander’s legs and feet will be the first things to touch the lunar surface. They must withstand the kinetic energy of the descending lander as well as its weight.

  • Texture
    The lander’s foot must account for the texture of the lunar soil (or regolith).

  • Materials
    The selected materials must be capable of withstanding the temperature on the Moon’s surface, as well as the lack of air (i.e., atmosphere).


The students at the HCT utilize the latest technology in CAD applications.

Efforts related to the Google Lunar X PRIZE project are performed using Solid Edge ST3, the latest tool offered by Siemens. This is made possible by a partnership between RCSP and Siemens PLM Software on the "Engineering Meets Education" program.

The use of a common CAD software package enables numerous people to work on a project simultaneously and then bring all the various pieces together in an assembly file. Work on the RCSP lander project is distributed among several organizations so that faster progress can be made on all the systems that make up the lander. The legs and feet mentioned above are only a fraction of the subsystems that comprisses the lander.

It’s a real pleasure working with the students to challenge them and to hear fresh ideas. The students are eager to please and are hungry for a challenge.

Mike Soutullo
RCSP Structures Lead
Teledyne Brown Engineering

 

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