Google X-Prize Team – Part-Time Scientists

It’s 43 years since Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Now a group of volunteer hackers and engineers are about to send a privately-built amateur radio rover to the Moon.

Part Time Scientists Lunar Rover

Writing on ZD-Net Simon Bisson tells how the Part-Time Scientists team aim to win the Google Lunar X-Prize by landing their lunar rover on the Moon.

Simon says the Part-Time Scientists are putting together a cloud-linked global communications network [COMRAY] to handle radio links to their lander and rover (using amateur radio bands), there’s still too much lag in the system to deliver a hands-on driving experience. The rover needs to have some smarts in order to process information about its environment, while still handling input from a driver on Earth.

Read Simon Bisson’s article Home-brew hackers cook up Europe’s return to the Moon
http://www.zdnet.com/europes-return-to-the-moon-7000001306/

Watch Part-Time Scientists testing their Lunar Rover

Part-Time Scientists http://www.ptscientists.com/

Deep Space Communications Array (COMRAY) (Project Leader Michael Doornbos N4LNX of Evadot) http://www.comray.net/

Google Lunar X-Prize http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/