Design and Fabrication of a Concept Mars Rover and Studying the Prospects of Space Exploration and Mining

The project requires to design and fabricate a Concept Mars Rover after studying the possibility of extra-planetary mining for resource harvesting and all the past and present projects as well as learning future concepts of other space agencies such as NASA, ESA, JAXA, SpaceX, Planetary Resources, e

Project Title

Design and Fabrication of a Concept Mars Rover and Studying the Prospects of Space Exploration and Mining

Project Area of Specialization

Robotics

Project Summary

The project requires to design and fabricate a Concept Mars Rover after studying the possibility of extra-planetary mining for resource harvesting and all the past and present projects as well as learning future concepts of other space agencies such as NASA, ESA, JAXA, SpaceX, Planetary Resources, etc. The extra-planetary resources found on Mars,the Moon, and the asteroids can be utilized to explore and commercialize development in space. For this, technology related to resource exploitation, processing, surface construction and manufacturing with space resources has to be developed. It would not only mean to extract precious metals for profit but also to acquire, manufacture, and store propellants for Extra-planetary vehicles, and water and life support for the crew, and fuel for power generation using resources on exploratory sites. Therefore, future development of Pakistan Space Exploration in extra-planetary mining proves to have the potential for vital contribution in Pakistan’s economy. The idea of space mining entails the potential of harvesting and exploiting rare heavy metals and other resources on extra-planetary objects such as Asteroids, Moons and Planets for using them in space or bringing them back to Earth. As the population of the world is increasing, the resources of the planet are continually depleting and some key resources including certain metals and minerals necessary to create technology and food industries could potentially run out. Therefore, the future for the industrial and technological advancement of the human race requires future exploration of outer space. Rovers are the major contributors of modern-day space exploration missions - most focused one of which is the Mars exploration - providing important information about the geology of Mars at present as well as the origins of Mars. Their locomotive ability and their ability to  investigate targeted locations has provided access to the researches to more widely explore Mars than the previous immobile robots and provide evidence that Mars might have been habitable in the past. Rovers give information about the geology of the planet as well as its mineral content. Mars has types of rocks made up of a different mixture of chemicals. A rover has the ability to mine samples for study of those different chemicals. This information can be critical in devising strategies to colonize the Red Planet in the future. This project only focuses on the Robotics portion of such a venture so as to understand, describe and demonstrate the elements that should be a part of such a rover and in therefore in this Phase-I of the project, the structural design as well as the software integration to allow it to negotiate through uneven terrain has been focused on. The base structure has been made to have flexible capability of integrating a number of different modules such as robotic arm, cameras, different sensors in the consequent phases.

Project Objectives

The objectives of the project are to design and fabricate a Concept Mars Rover to demonstrate the importance of development of technologies for space exploration and studying the possibility of extra-planetary mining and resource harvesting for its economic potential to augment national power. It can be broken down into the following key objectives:

• Study of the prospects of space exploration and mining
• Design of the Rover
• Fabrication of the Rover
• Performance evaluation and optimization

Project Implementation Method

Project Methodology

The approach of the project follows the following major steps:

1. Study of the prospects of space exploration and mining
2. Selection and modification of suitable design considerations
3. Hardware selection 
4. Cost analysis
5. Procurement of hardware
6. 3D printing of required parts
7. Processing of 3D printed parts
8. Assembly of Rover
9. Assigning IDs to servo motors
10. Configuring Raspberry Pi 4
11. Learning ROS - Robot Operating System, and Python for Robotics
12. Study of kinematics
13. Installing software and dependencies
14. Configuring servo motors
15. Encoder calibration
16. Odometry calibration
17. Building the base controller code
18. Base Controller test
19. Circuit wiring
20. Hardware testing
21. Performance evaluation and optimization

Benefits of the Project

There is little to no interest from the government sectors to progress in commercial space programs and there are few schools, universities, or institutions which are focusing a little on this subject. Space studies are majorly neglected otherwise and there is no national debate about building an efficient space program which is essential for Pakistan because it will enable national and commercial space exploration and provide Pakistan with military and economic benefits.

This project demonstrates the importance of where the developed countries of the world are headed and the study of those prospects of space exploration and mining is done. 

A Concept Mars Rover is built as a demonstration of existing rover design concepts.

The rover has a flexible design and has the ability to negotiate through uneven terrain while maintaining stability, therefore it can also be used as an EOD - Explosive Ordnance Disposal - vehicle or an intelligence gathering vehicle with required sensors and actuators integrated to it in consequent phases of the project.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

 The structural design as well as the software integration to allow it to negotiate through uneven terrain has been focused upon. The following are the final delieverables of the project:

• Study of the prospects of space exploration and mining - to be incorporated in the final project report
• Design of a Concept Mars Rover - to have a flexible design to allow it to negotiate through any terrain
• Fabrication of the Rover - Hardware and software integration
• Performance evaluation and optimization - Debugging and improvements to be done.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Manufacturing

Other Industries

Education

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

3D/4D Printing

Sustainable Development Goals

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

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