Radio Shack Joins the LunaCorp Rover Team
Several years ago LunaCorp set out to put a privately funded rover on the Moon. This project took a major leap today with the announcement that RadioShack Corporation, America’s largest consumer electronics retailer, has signed on with the LunaCorp team as a corporate sponsor. One aspect of sponsorship will include simulation software of the LunaCorp rover being developed with Microsoft.
According to a LunaCorp press release, “LunaCorp advisor Dr. Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the Moon with Neil Armstrong in 1969, applauded the RadioShack commitment. “A successful future for space exploration depends on involving the public directly, and I am delighted that RadioShack shares this vision of opening up the adventure to everyone.”
LunaCorp’s initial rover is scheduled to land on the Moon in late 2003. According to LunaCorp, “The rover is being designed by Dr. Red Whittaker, chief scientist of the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The goal is to explore near the Moon’s poles where orbiting satellites have found indications that valuable ice deposits may lurk deep in permanently shadowed polar craters.”
The rover will under go tests in July 2001 in the Canadian Arctic. According to LunaCorp “NASA has financed this field trial with a $1 million grant and LunaCorp’s corporate sponsors will pay for the communications required to link the robot to the Internet so the entire world can participate.”
Related Links
° LunaCorp
° The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
Background Information
° Nomad the Robot Finds a Meteorite in Antarctica, SpaceRef
° Human lunar missions, SpaceRef Directory
° Robotic lunar missions, SpaceRef Directory
