4 Precursor Mission Design 4.3 Lunar Rover Race - Selected Concept

4.3.4 Description - Brief Race Outline

The general mission concept involves two historic landing sites, i.e. Apollo 17 (Lunar Rover Vehicle) and Luna 21 (Lunakhod 2). The lunar lander will land at the Apollo 17 landing site containing 10 rovers and one media vehicle. The racing rovers will line up at a designated point and make there way to other landing sites or geographical locations as a series of stages on its way to the Luna 21 landing site. The Media Vehicle will already have arrived at the finishing line of each stage before the beginning of each new race. They will then travel back to the Apollo 17 site in a similar fashion but using a different route.

The one way versus round trip race idea was considered for its merits and the following considerations in favor of a round trip race were made.

The lunar lander is equipped with two TV cameras to film race departure and the arrival of the rovers, from another viewpoint than the Media Vehicle. These are generally the most appreciated moments by the public. Extensive media coverage means that more revenue can be obtained from advertising. The lander can be equipped with large bandwidth capabilities (more Mbps transmission to Earth, better image quality). After the race, rovers can be used to demonstrate and educate about time delay and teleoperation.

If the 380km long race would be a one way trip, zigzagging between Apollo 17 and Luna 21, there is a higher risk of losing a rover before it reaches Luna 21. Because for the round trip the racing distance between Apollo 17 and Luna 21 will be approximately 190km, this risk is minimized.

The duration of the mission will be 14 Earth days, i.e. one Lunar day. The lander will land on the first day. The race itself will last 10 days and will consist of 12 stages. Post race time will be used for public and economic usage of the surviving rovers. The Racing Authority will own forty percent of this time. The remaining sixty percent can be filled in by the contestants who will receive full economic return for these Rover Minutes. They will have to hand in proposals for using rover time to the Racing Authority in accordance with the overall mission objectives, thus ensuring that the total mission time is devoted to the public outreach program.

Funding will be completely private. Competitions on Earth attract sponsors who will get the opportunity to advertise themselves either on the track or during commercial breaks. These ideas can be employed for the race also. The cameras on the lander can be used to film the sponsors' trademarks at the starting and finishing line. The rovers themselves will have these trademarks on them and can be viewed every time the rovers pass each other, viewed by the lander or the media vehicle. The official rover race web page and media coverage will also display the trademarks.

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