AIME For The Moon....And BeyondHighlands Intermediate School08-0012 |
In a dark crater on the moon 238,900 miles from Earth, will venture AIME,
an AUTONOMOUS ICEWATER MINING
EXPLORER. The young minds of the future here at Highlands
Intermediate have designed a lunar rover, AIME, to attempt the Google Lunar
X Prize Challenge along with the bonus challenges of roaming more than
5000 meters, imaging remnants of the Lunar Prospector, and finding water
ice.
In the Google Lunar X Prize Competition, the first private organization to successfully land a craft on the moon will receive $20 million. The craft will need to roam at least 500m on the lunar surface and send “mooncasts” back to earth containing high resolution, 360o panoramic pictures from the moon’s surface, pictures of the rover on the moon’s surface, high definition(HD) videos of the rover’s near-real time journey, and data that was loaded onto the craft before launch. In addition, $5 million in bonus prizes will be awarded for successfully completing additional tasks such as roving more than 5000 meters, imaging manmade artifacts, finding water ice or surviving a lunar night.[1] |