Nasa Torch

grabcad

Nasa Lunar TORCH SystemModel is designed with detailed moving motors and gear boxes.Reflectors:They are in two shapes, rectangular (14 pieces) and triangles (28 Pieces). They all form a shape of equal sides polygon with (14 sides)Movements of the system- Opening: Linear moving Nut running in a screw is used to pull steel wires in order to open all sides of the reflectors, In my design I used planetary gear box where the sun gear is coupled with a motor and plant cartage is coupled with screw. Outer gear is fixed with frame. - Any other linear actuator can be used.- Hydraulic cylinder may be used if the oil freezing can be avoidedTitling about Horizontal axis - Stepper motor with worm and worm wheel gear box is used, it gives 90 deg of rotation. Starting from horizontal to full vertical as shown in the videoTitling about vertical axis- A bigger motor with bigger gear box are used to rotate the torch holding shaft for 360 deg. The vertical shaft is limiting the rotation around the horizontal axis from be negative (means towards down) but next is a solution.Tripod hanging system- Used to balance torch system when the rover is placed in inclined surface.- It also can balance the torch from falling down by updating the center of gravity location when the rover walk in a dumped surface- It can be used to give more inclination angle to the system because the vertical rod is blocking the torch from rotating a negative angle (means towards down)- This will give a big advantage to this design as you can orient to torch independent from the rover body.- In this deign I used three linear actuator to do make this system