Artemis astronauts could be helped by a robot ‘Light Bender\” on the Moon to keep the lights on
Sean Dougherty, Maxar’s Chief Robotics Engineer and Lead for Light Bender, said in a Maxar press release that \”part of what we do is conceptually very simple. We reflect sunlight onto a solar cell located in darkness.\” It’s more difficult to do this without human involvement. We are leveraging investments in automation to study how NASA could use robots for assembling and deploying a set reflectors which keep sunlight focused on solar panels operating in shadows. It’s been done before.\”
Light Bender is operated by hoisting up two reflectors of 33 feet (10 meters) each, on a 65 foot (20 meter) telescoping pole. One mirror tracks the sun autonomously and reflects the light onto the second mirror. The second mirror then reflects the rays to the solar panels.
Maxar’s Light Bender is a NASA Langley Research Center collaboration. The first demonstration on Earth is planned for 2025. The contract was awarded to the company in May 2023 under NASA’s Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity Program. Maxar will be in charge of the robotics, while NASA is responsible for the structural design. Maxar has shown its expertise with robots before.
Source:
https://www.space.com/moon-artemis-astronauts-maxar-light-bender
