Moon Mining Talk

Three-year senior Mike Zhang from Hong Kong recently presented at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) about his work regarding robotic moon mining on November 11. Zhang caught the attention of professor Jonathan H. Jiang from NASA’s Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was an invited guest at this year’s FRC (First Robotics Championship) World Championship in Houston, an event in which Zhang was competing. Professor Jiang took particular interest in Zhang’s swerve drivetrain design and invited Zhang to join his moon mining research group at Caltech to assist in designing a transportation robot for travel between the center moon and sub moon bases.

“My goal is to design a fully functional remote robot that is lightweight, prepared for extreme weather, and flexibly adaptive to the complex surfaces of the moon,” he explains. “I completed the first stage of its design in November before giving the presentation at Caltech. It was a great opportunity to connect with others working on moon mining projects. I received a lot of positive feedback and gained valuable advice on the second stage of my design. This is an international team involving many people from Caltech in addition to other institutions who are all working together in the field of space mining.”

The Yuk Lunch Seminar is held every Wednesday at CalTech and hosted by Professor Yuk L. Yung who is a professor of Planetary Science and Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist at Caltech’s Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. Past topics have included “From Earth to Exoplanet: Explore the Universe Using NASA Satellites” by Dr. Jonathan Jiang (JPL), “The Origin of Life: From Big Ban to the Genetic Code; From Fire to the Earth” by Dr. Hyman Hartman (MIT), and “The Thermodynamics and General Circulation on High Obliquity Planets” by Dr. Wanying Kang (Harvard).