Polaris Excavator Rover Digs a Ton of Dirt in Demonstration at NASA Glenn

Posted on September 11, 2013

Polaris is an excavator rover from Astrobotic. Polaris's job will be to prospect for water ice and other trapped volatiles at the permanently shadowed poles of the Moon.

Polaris recently underwent a demonstration and testing at the NASA Glenn SLOPE facility. Polaris climbed slopes up to 15 degrees and reached speeds of 40 centimeters per second. Polaris was able to dig at depths over 20 centimeters deep and haul away more than 80 kilograms of lunar regolith simulant at one time. During the test, Polaris excavated, transported, and dumped over 1000kg of lunar simulant in under one hour. The video is sped up at 60 times normal speed at the 1:21 mark. Take a look:

Photo: Astrobotic

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