Ac 2007-415: the Sooner Lunar Schooner: a Common Project for Multiple Aerospace Classes

The Sooner Lunar Schooner (SLS) mission is a robotic mission to perform material science experiments on the lunar remnants of the Apollo 17 and Lunakhod 2 spacecraft. We have been using the SLS mission scenario as a framework for a number of classes in several departments including the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments. In this paper we will discuss, within the framework of the SLS project, the arrangement of projects within courses; give examples of the types of experiments and projects we are doing in these classes; and present current assessment results and future plans for assessment; plans for making SLS a coordinated multi-year theme through the curriculum; and the current state of the SLS mission. The Sooner Lunar Schooner Mission The Sooner Lunar Schooner is a multi-disciplinary ongoing project at the University of Oklahoma to plan, design, prototype, cost and (when funds become available) build/contract and fly a robotic mission to the Moon. The core of the SLS mission will be two robot rovers that will traverse the Moon’s surface and observe its geology, as well as locating and studying artifacts of previous Lunar missions, including Apollo 17 and Luna 21 (Lunakhod 2). These rovers will be delivered to the surface by an innovative landing capsule designed to absorb the impact of a rough landing, rather than relying on a precision-guided powered descent. Upon arriving at the Moon, the spacecraft will fire a retrorocket, slowing its velocity to nearly zero approximately 100 meters above the surface. The capsule will then free-fall the rest of the way. After impact, the capsule will deploy the rovers. Additional details of the origin of the project are available in [5]. Most existing senior capstone projects, for example Big Blue [4], which are funded by industry or government agencies, try to address different problems each year. The SLS project is used every year with the same mission objectives, though the particular aspects of the mission under study do change. This allows students to build on the previous year’s work while still exploring new problems and challenges. The goal of the SLS mission is to explore a small section of the Moon; conduct a materials analysis of the materials left there by an Apollo mission thirty years earlier; and to perform a selenographic survey of areas that were too distant or considered too dangerous to be done by the Apollo crew. The goal of the Sooner Lunar Schooner Project is to improve the science and engineering educations of the hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students working on the project [5]. The participants, while primarily from engineering and physics, will also include representatives from business, art, journalism, law and education. This project ties together numerous existing research programs at the University of Oklahoma, and provides a framework for the creation of many new research proposals. The Sooner Lunar Schooner concept was presented to the College of Engineering faculty at the University of Oklahoma. Discussions followed of the various roles that existing labs, capstones and faculty could fill. A number of courses were set up or reorganized to take advantage of the SLS domain. Additional details of the origin of the project are available in [5]. The remainder of this paper will review the results of a few of those classes. Space Robotics & the SLS Mission Part of the graduate sequence in the robotics curriculum at the University of Oklahoma is a course on space robotics. In this course we cover the unique aspects of robot mechanics, electronics, software and design that are necessitated by the space environment. Recent versions of the course have used the SLS as the subject of the