INTERACTIVE RESOURCE IMPACT SIMULATION

PROBLEM

NASA is being asked to make a Lunar Base for a permanent human presence on the moon. To supply food, water and day to day ‘dumb’ equipment to a Lunar Base, we need to develop another method of landing supplies that doesn’t leave expensive rocket engines and fuel tanks on the surface every time the astronauts need something. Since there isn’t air around the moon that would allow us to use heat shields, airfoils or parachutes, is it possible to slow down supply pods without engines and fuel, but instead utilize the environment to allow the pod to roll across the sand?

OBJECTIVE

Develop a computer model that will provide information demonstrating at what speeds a supply pod of food, water and other essentials could be dropped onto the lunar surface and the pod survive the impact and rolling without the supplies being burned up from over heating, turned into mush or scattered across the surface.
Develop a mathematical model that will determine the ideal scenario for a pod to survive conditions laid out by the lunar environment.

Some of the variables will include:

Mass of container and contents
Strength of container
Velocity at touchdown
Angle of contact with the surface
Surface particle size—sand to gravel to rocks to boulders
Undulation of the surface
Coefficient of restitution of pod
Internal and external dampening of container affects the restitution of pod
Spin of pod—forward or backward

Lunar IRIS Brochure – UPDATED [3/26/21].pdf

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