Colorado School of Mines at the Regolith Excavation and Lunabotics Competitions

Briefs: SBSP economics; ISRU conference papers - RLV News - The Eleventh Space Resources Roundtable and Planetary & Terrestrial Mining Sciences Symposium site includes presentations from the June 2010 symposium and pictures from an ISRU demonstration session. Some of the presentations and demonstrations feature prizes in one way or another. For example:

Lunar and Planetary Excavation Systems: Lessons Learned at the Colorado School of Mines - (PDF, zipped) - P.J. van Susante, C.B. Dreyer - This describes lessons learned in the Regolith Excavation Challenge and the 2010 Lunabotics competition.

2010 Lunabotics Mining Competition (PDF, zipped) - R. Mueller, G. Murphy - This includes an overview of the 2010 Lunabotics competition, a look ahead to the 2011 competition, and the perspective of Colorado School of Mines team.

The following links are for pictures from the ISRU demonstrations:

Colorado School of Mines Excavators. - From left to right: Backhoe, Lunabotics Bucket Ladder, and NASA Regolith Centennial Challenge Bucket Ladder (Chris Dreyer and CSM students).

Colorado School of Mines NASA Regolith Centennial Challenge Bucket Ladder Excavator - (Mark Gefreh and CSM students)