Lunar Numbat

Fortunately the variable throttle control technology we're developing for ASRI's Ausroc 2.5 is also transferable to the descent stage motor of the White Label Space lunar lander, so it's a win all round for our GLXP partner WLS, the Australian Space Research Institute, and us.

With parts for development provided by ASRI, Luke Weston has built a 60 V power supply for testing the motor which will drive the gearhead that will control the RP1 valve, and thus throttle propellent to the rocket engine.

After some simple testing, Luke has also tuned the Rutex R2020 servo drive board so as to give it full control of the motor / gearhead assembly, as seen below:





Along with this great work, Luke has also prepared some preliminary code for an AVR (Arduino) to control the throttle motor via the Rutex servo board, and done a marvellous job of updating the relevant documentation on the Wiki.

Ultimately, through Luke's and the rest of the build team's efforts, we'll prepare avionics to take instructions on a CAN bus and translate these to valve positions which will control propellant flow into the Ausroc A2.5 rocket engine, and thus thrust. All a bit exciting really