Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday, the nineteenth of December. I'm emma, I'm Zara. Australia is heading to the Moon. But if you're thinking of astronauts.
In space suits, think again.
After an eighteen month design process, the Australian Space Agency has unveiled the prototype for the country's first lunar rover, or RUVERA, as it's been nicknamed by the Australian public.
I don't think we should be trusting the Australian public with any naming at this rate.
I thought we had low.
We let ourselves down time and time again. But this robot RUVERA is completing a very real mission, and that is to the surface of the Moon on a NASA mission later this decade. The federal government has announced forty two million dollars to fund the construction of the rover, and it'll be developed by a group of companies and universities selected by the Australian Space Agency.
Experts want to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon.
So what does that mean and why?
To understand more, I reached out to someone who is much more qualified than I am to talk about space exploration, mechanical engineer Chloe Chang. Despite literally just graduating from monash Uni, where she led a rover program, Chloe has been working with Lunar Outpost Oceania. They are the technical lead of the ELO two consortium. That's that group selected by the Space Agency to develop this rover and she joins US now.
Chloe Chang, Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me.
We are so excited to be talking to you today about this announcement, but I wanted to take it back to basics. First of all, why is Australia sending a rover to the Moon?
Very good question. Australia is sending a over to the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis program to support humanity's return to the lunar surface. The robo will contribute to the international efforts to explore the Moon, extracting resources like regulars and see if there's water, there's oxygen in there, and this will be essentral for future missions and also sustaining a human presence on the Moon.
You've mentioned a return to the Moon obviously, you know back in the Apollo missions several decades ago. The Moon was a huge focus when it came to space exploration. But why has it returned to focus.
It's returned to focus because I think there's a lot long term that we can gain from space. Space has infinite resources and power and is estimated to be a one point eight trillion industry in the future. So it's really important that Australia cements their space in the space industry and be a part of that global market.
Let's talk about the prototype unveiled this week, RuvA.
What can you tell me about it?
What is it and what will this piece of robotics I guess actually be able to do. Hi. Sorry, I'm just gonna pop in here because Chloe mentions this word regolith a few times coming up, and I was too embarrassed to ask her what it means. So in case you also don't know what it means, I just wanted to let you know.
Regolith it's basically moon soil.
It's a term used to describe the loose rocks, dust, other materials found on the lunar surface.
Back to the interview.
So this is a small microwave sized rover. It's about twenty kilograms. It can traverse uneven terrain about one hundred meters a day, and it's looking for interesting samples, collecting lunar regoliths, looking for water, looking for oxygen. So that's basically the basics of the mission. But our consortium elo TO this year has developed four prototypes which have been designed to test critical design aspects.
So I imagine the challenge is developing something that brings all of those elements together. Because, of course, this rover not only has to get to the Moon, which I imagine is a mission in and of itself, but once it's there, gather that information and then bring it home.
It's not coming home. It's staying on the Moon forever, forever. Well, it probably will be recycled for maybe a later mission, but it is going to the surface and it will stay there.
Wow, a permanent rover on the Moon. So what are the findings from this rover going to be used for?
How long will it take?
Sort Of, once we get the rover on the lunar surface it starts doing its thing, when can we expect some discoveries?
Tricky question. We don't know a lot about the Moon as it is. We have the Lunar Conaissance orbit are that NASA put up and that's our source of truth and our most up to date data of the Moon, but actual knowledge of the composition of the soil, especially the poles. So this rover's going to the south pole.
There's not a lot of information around that, and they're suspected to be water in the poles of the Moon, which would be very important to sustaining a human presence on the Moon and sustaining astronauts up there, so that we're not bringing our own water on our and oxygen to the Moon. So in terms of what we will discover, I guess you know that the whole point of this mission is to send a rover up there, have a look around and see what we can find.
Yeah, I'm really interested in this idea of establishing a human presence on the Moon. We've heard from the Space Agency this week that that is a major focus of the international space community over the coming decades. But what does that actually mean. What would a presence, a sustainable human presence on the Moon look like.
Yeah, a sustainable human presence on the Moon involves establishing habitats. Maybe they're made out of the lunar regolith itself. Maybe we have robotic you know, huge robotic infrastructure, huge like civil three D printers that take regulith and create our own lunar bricks, because lunar regolith is able to shield radiation and the thermal environment. So that's kind of one example.
But also, you know, infrastructure that allows astronauts to live and work and carry out their scientific experience for extended periods of time without constant resupply from Earth. So just making sure we have good power systems, good communication networks, life support systems, and of course food, water and oxygen.
So we're talking about a presence for scientific discovery purposes, not necessarily an ambition to kind of establish human colonies as an alternative to life on Earth.
I think the world wants to definitely head in that direction of having a colony on the Moon, having a colony on Mars. But in the coming decades, I think it is purely research, understanding more about the environment, creating a base on the Moon to then hop to Mars, if that makes sense. It's about creating those highways to space, to the Moon and then to Mars. I think in the next few decades.
We'll be back with more of today's deep dive right after this.
Here.
We have obviously heard a lot about Mars more recently than we've seen conversation about the Moon. I suppose you know, Mars rovers constant conversations around you know, is their life on Mars?
Could we be all headed for Mars one day soon?
Why is it important also to investigate lunar exploration to support.
That Mars is really really far away? So being able to get to the Moon, refeel, restock, and then head over to Mars is one of those are key reasons. And I think as well, the Moon is much closer. You know, we're able to explore how technologies work, how humans live in space on the Moon, which will be relevant environments to Mars, not exact. So I guess it's just a step closer to being able to create a presence on Mars.
Why send a rover?
Obviously, space exploration in the twentieth century looked like men in white suits going up into space.
Now it looks very different.
Have we moved away from human exploration in space?
I think we haven't moved away from human exploration. I think, in fact, we're really coming back to that. You know, NASA announcing therefore astronauts to return to the Moon as part of the Artemis missions, which we're supporting. But why send a rover first is because it's a lot safer, a lot more cost effective, a lot more technically feasible.
You know, with a rover, you don't have to feed it, you don't have to give it water, you don't need to make sure it's inside a environment that has, you know, the right pressure and the right oxygen. It also can survive in much more extreme temperatures. You know, I don't know about you, but I definitely wouldn't want to be in negative one hundred degrees or one hundred degree heat. So yeah, it's much safer, and we're able to achieve
the mission objectives with just a robot. So if we can do what we need with just robotics, then it's not risking human lives.
From the kind of construction and development side of things with getting this project off the ground. How do you test a rover in those conditions?
How do you.
Mimic an environment that is so desolate, a hostile that doesn't really exist here on Earth to ensure that it's going to safely make that journey and get there in one piece and do its job.
Yeah, so it's a very rigorous systems engineering approach. So, you know, one of the concerns is thermal environment gets very hot and it gets very cold. Another concern is vacuum. We are limited to certain materials that we can use so that the rover doesn't outgas. We obviously are very concerned about you know, going off in our rocket, the shock and the vibrations that all experience, so it has
to be structurally sound. Of course, it needs to also be considered from a radiation perspective, making sure we're shielding it correctly and our electronics can work the way it's intended.
So yeah, there are a lot of aspects to the environmental considerations that we test, and I think we you know, start off with subsystem level testing and we'll test them in sort of those unique environments that I mentioned, and then we'll start you know combining like maybe we do thermal and shock gun vibe at the same time.
And what's the timeline for the rover's first mission? When are the experts with the consortium hoping to get this up and running later.
This decade, But still I guess unconfus sorry, I cannot say space secrets.
Is it surprising to you that this is the first time Australia will send a lunar rover into space.
I never really thought that Australia would be a part of something as historic as this, so it's definitely new and very exciting, and I think when I did first hear about it, it was a shock. But now it's it's you know, I've been working on this for a year and a half. It's my it's my every day. But you know, this project allows Australia to showcase it's engineering and technical innovation on an international stage and I'm so honored to be a part of that.
Well, Chloe, you are recently graduated from university yourself. You are incredibly young and successful in your field. I'd love to know a little bit more about what your day to day involvement looks like with the project.
Yeah. I actually just graduated a couple of weeks ago, so I'm very excited to work full time on this. But my day to day changes, you know, day to day because every day is a new challenge. It's always uh, you know, how do we do this? We brainstorm, we talk about risk, then we build, design, prototype, test, and sort of validate and inform our next design. And there are lots of different parts of the rover and lots of different aspects of the mission that are beyond technical,
like operational. As I mentioned, sometimes you can design something super well, but if it's not designed to be used by humans or to complete the objectives of the mission, you know, can dramatically affect your success. So yeah, I would say it's very exhilarating. Definitely been challenged, learned a lot, and increase my technical skills. So yeah, it's been it's been a blast.
What are you most excited for about this whole project? Considering you know, the ruver as we're calling it, from start to finish, what are your big hopes for this one?
I think being in the mission control center and watching it land on the Moon safely and drive across the surface, I think we'd just break my mind. It's just a culmination of a lot of people's hard work and a lot of years, and we've got a lot of work ahead of us. But I think that's what I'm most excited for, and it will be an incredible moment of pride for this nation. Yeah, and I also just want to say, like, this isn't a once in a lifetime opportunity.
It's a once in a century moment. And I hope that it won't be a once in a century moment to be able to explore space, and that the generations that come before us will be more involved. And I think you know, to talk to younger viewers if they're listening. You know, it's likely that the first person on Mars is currently sitting in a classroom somewhere in the world.
Wow.
And the first person on Mas is most likely a woman. So you know, you you have the opportunity to further human explorations. So now is the time we have this mission and we're standing on the cost of something really extraordinary.
Maybe the first person on Mars, he's a woman, and maybe her name is Chloe Jank Chloe, thank you so much for your time today. That was really, really fascinating. We so appreciate you breaking it down for us, and hopefully I'll chat to you in a few years time from that mission control room.
Let's go, but so lovely to meet you m on. Have a lovely day.
That's all we've got time for on today's podcast. Thank you for joining us for that exploration of outer space. We'll be back again this afternoon with the headlines you need to know, but until then, have a wonderful day.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Adunda Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadigol Country.
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