Extended Length Marsupial Rover Sensing Tether

Luna proposes to continue the development of extended length capabilities for its marsupial rover sensing tether (MaRS Tether). Luna’s revolutionary technology measures the distributed tension and curvature of a tether that connects a rover to its base station and can identify pinch points, snags, or high tension. Previous SBIR programs with NASA JPL have demonstrated the capabilities of a 50m tether to identify a snag location with JPL’s Axel Rover, and proved the feasibility of future miniaturization of the tether’s acquisition system. During this multiphase effort, Luna is building upon these successes to extend the sensing length to 1000m, to enable NASA to pursue more complex exploration missions, such as navigating a large crater to study features on the crater wall. During Phase I, Luna demonstrated the feasibility of sensing tension up to 800m, and curvature up to 400m, and added a spot scan mode to enable fast update rates over a short section of the tether. In addition to increasing the sensing length for curvature measurements, during this Phase II Luna will increase the system robustness and deliver a prototype acquisition system, 1000m extended length tether, and a shorter 50m tether for testing at JPL.