The Artemis Jr. rover: Mobility platform for lunar ISRU mission simulation

The Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) project aims to verify the presence of water and other volatiles on the Moon, and to serve as a precursor for future prospecting missions. The Artemis Jr. rover was developed as the surface mobility component of the RESOLVE project, and was specifically designed to accommodate the RESOLVE payload in a six-day NASA-CSA mission simulation carried out on Mauna Kea, Hawaii in July 2012. This paper describes the preparation, results, and lessons learned as they apply to the Artemis Jr. rover. Areas of focus include the operations as well as the rover software and hardware. Key results include support for the skid-steer configuration of the rover and the success of the absolute and relative localization functions of the rover.