Moonshot (MOONSHOT)

Vision and Mission: Project “Moonshot” shares the ambition of humanity to become an interplanetary species, and in the upcoming years aims to advance both science and technological solutions pertinent to Lunar surface missions. To this end, we bring leading TU Delft research teams together in an interdisciplinary environment to improve the technology readiness levels (TRLs) of payloads destined for Moon in the upcoming decade, and thus strengthen the Dutch contribution towards this global mission.

Goals: The project will improve the TRLs of 4 Lunar payloads, which stem from the expertise of TUD researchers from various faculties, including LOUPE (Lunar Observatory for Unresolved Polarimetry of Earth), Radiation sensing, Autonomous sensing, and Relative Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) of swarms.

Lunar Zebro: These Lunar payloads could be carried by the TU Delft Lunar Zebro rover (or the Zes Benige Robot), which is a robust swarm platform, capable of scaling and adapting to the needs of the scientific payloads it houses. The interfaces of the rover are customizable, which allows for the technical integration of the payload functionality with the operations of the rover.