AEDC sponsored Moonbuggy team puts rough terrain behind them

The Franklin County High School Moonbuggy Team recently competed in the 20th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race® organized by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The two driver team, Logan Stockton (front driver) and Elizabeth Preston (back), is shown here tackling an obstacle on the course after experiencing a malfunction with the buggy’s rear pedaling mechanism. (Photo provided)

AEDC sponsored Moonbuggy team puts rough terrain behind them

Published June 17, 2013
By Raquel March
ARDC/PA

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- NASA made it easy for Franklin County High School students to experience moon exploration by participating in the 20th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race®. Navigating the simulated lunar terrain in the race, however, may not have been so easy.

The race, which took place at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, Ala., was a 7/10 mile course that mimicked lunar craters, rocks, lava ridges, inclines and lunar soil.

With assistance from Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) volunteer machinists Ronnie Long and Bob Williams and sponsorship through the AEDC Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Center and Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA), the team was able to design and construct a Moonbuggy that addressed a series of engineering problems that are similar to problems faced by the original Apollo-era lunar rover developers in the late 1960s.

Team members from the high school's Skills U.S.A. organization built their Moonbuggy in the school's machine shop and selected two team members to operate the buggy. The Moonbuggy must be human powered and carry two students, male and female.

As a part of the competition, and prior to course testing, the un-assembled Moonbuggy entries must be carried to the course starting line. At the starting line, the entries are assembled and readied for course testing.

The top three teams, having the shortest total times in assembly and traversing the terrain course, are the winning teams.

Franklin County placed 31st out of 43 high school teams and plan to compete again next year.

The race was inspired by the original lunar rover, first piloted across the moon's surface in the early 1970s during the Apollo 15 mission, and used in the subsequent Apollo 16 and 17 missions. Eight college teams participated in the first NASA Great Moonbuggy Race in 1994. The race was expanded in 1996 to include high school teams.

NASA's Great Moonbuggy Race has been hosted by the U.S. Space & Rocket Center since 1996. Major corporate sponsors for the race are Jacobs Engineering ESSSA Group, Lockheed Martin Corporation, The Boeing Company, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Aerojet, all with operations in Huntsville.