Moon Rover Challenge Comes to Shibuya

The next White Label Space Rover Challenge will take place tomorrow and next Saturday in the vibrant and chic Shibuya district of Tokyo, and will be broadcast live on Ustream and Twitter.

The aim of the Rover Challenge event is to motivate and inspire the next generation of space explorers through hands-on science and engineering activities. The Rover Challenge includes exciting activities that demonstrate to the audience the challenges of driving the White Label Space rover over the Moon's rough surface.

Participating in the event will be local elementary school children from grades four to six.

This event is the next in the series that started with the previous Rover Challenge held in Sendai this August.

Dates
 Day1: Sep 1st, Sat 14:00-17:00 (Japan Local Time)
 Day2: Sep 8th, Sat 14:00-17:00 (Japan Local Time)

Venue: Hachirabo Children's Science Center, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

Contents
 Day1: Building a kit rover
 Day2: Driving the White Label Space rover

Broadcasting
 Ustream: http://ustre.am/NVSb
 Twitter: @wlsjapan

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Descent Trajectory Discussion

These photos are from the trajectory analysis presentation by Bart Hertog currently underway at the White Label Space HQ.

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Tethered Flight Test 1

A short duration hovering test hop was conducted.

Objectives for the test were:

1.  Test the ground, flight command and data logging systems. 
2.  Demonstrate that the vehicle has sufficient thrust to actually liftoff. 
3.  Record orientation data to see how the IMU coped with the flight

All objectives were successfully achieved.

The photo below shows the vehicle at the point of lift off. Video will be posted shortly.

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Any Day Now

This photo shows the lander prototype suspended from its support frame. Just a few minor steps are needed before its first hovering test! 

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Inspiring the Children of Sendai

Sendai and more broadly the Tohoku region of Japan, is recovering from the earthquake, and White Label Space wishes to present a positive vision of the future to the children growing up in that challenging environment. The rover development of White Label Space is being led by 
Kazuya Yoshida who has a deep relationship with the Sendai region of Japan through his position as professor of aerospace engineering at Tohoku University. 

Recently Sendai National College held an exciting education event for local school children with the assistance of White Label Space. The event called "Rover Challenge" aimed to teach some science and engineering through an interesting and exciting hands-on experience.

To begin the educational event, Mr. Hakamada, CEO of White Label Space Japan, described the exploration activities of White Label Space and in particular the lunar rover being developed in Japan. The children listened curiously, before they got the chance to drive the WLS rover in a simulated obstacle course on the Moon's surface. This was very popular amongst the school students. The supervisors whispered secretly to the WLS members that they also wanted to try the game later on.

After the game, each of the children got to make their own kit rover with a simplified design that still kept the main driving functions, deepening their understanding of the challenges of rover design. Supporting the children for the kit assembly were members of the local Robot Contest club that previously won the Tohoku district tournament and currently aims to win the national championship. During the assembly of the kit rovers, no conversation could be heard.

The WLS members were concerned that the kit construction would take too long but most of the children finished making their kits in time and started to play with it in their own ways.

Hopefully some of the children will go on to become space engineers in the future. Thanks very much to the college students and the teachers who helped us!

This event was covered by the largest local news paper, Kahoku Shimpo.

 If you are interested in the Rover Challenge, please contact White Label Space Japan.

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First Hovering Test Soon

Our prototype hovering rocket vehicle is almost ready and the first tethered test could take place any day now.

Note that the vehicle doesn't have any legs yet since it will be fully suspended by tethers for the complete duration of the test.

This prototype vehicle uses pulse modulated monopropellant thrusters.

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Wanted: Spacecraft AIT Engineers

Do you have 1 to 2 years experience working on real spacecraft hardware in a commercial/institutional (but non-academic) environment? 

We are currently looking for spacecraft AIT engineers to work in the Netherlands supporting structural, thermal and functional tests.

European nationality or work permission preferred. Relocation support available. 

Please send CV to: careers@whitelabelspace.com

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Girls And Rocket

We had some special visitors recently during the integration of our rocket motor prototype.

Without any previous knowledge of the topic, the girl on the left proposed sending a flower to the moon, so we agreed to integrate that payload into our static test bench frame!

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Jeroen van Straten

Jeroen is an electrical engineer with experience in designing and building electronics for rockets and test benches.

Jeroen graduated for his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at Delft University of Technology this year. For the next few years, he will continue his education with a Master's degree in Embedded Systems.

Alongside his studies and White Label Space work, he is active within Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering, having worked on the electronics for the Dutch CanSat competition (see http://www.cansat.nl/) and Stratos rockets.

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Flying Soon at a Rocket Range Near You

Our first hovering rocket vehicle is starting to take shape. This photo shows some of the pieces positioned as they will be on the finished product.

The propulsion system will use three pulse-modulated thrusters running on monopropellant hydrogen peroxide. The project will give the White Label Space team valuable experience in designing and operating rocket vehicles, thus accumulating know-how that will later be used to develop our moon lander.

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Surveyor 1 Descent Simulation

Brush up on your GNC know-how and learn some interesting technical details about NASA's first spacecraft to soft land on the Moon!

This video presentation by White Label Space's GNC specialist, Bart Hertog, explains a simulation of the Surveyor 1 terminal descent based upon published NASA documents from the 1960s. Bart undertook this simulation as a validation exercise to prove that his method can give accurate results for the White Label Space lunar lander mission.

The results of the validation exercise were very good in terms of the propellant consumption and other important parameters of the landing stage. Some discrepancies were found for the braking motor but these can be traced to incomplete data sets, specifically the lack of an accurate thrust versus time curve for the main retro rocket motor.

WLS GLXP Team Summit Presentation May 2012

Andrew Barton and Takeshi Hakamada presented this update of White Label Space's progress at the GLXP team summit held in Washington, DC in May 2012.

Now Is The Time To Go Back To Space

Three space enthusiasts, inspired by the 50-year anniversary of John Glenn's orbit of the earth, launched a weather balloon with a looping video message to the entire world: "Now is the time for us to go back into space". Also check out their site for the behind scenes look at the production effort, which surprising seems to include the first (successful) marriage proposal filmed in near space and watched on the ground.

OpenSite presents Now Is The Time

We Have Ignition!

The White Label Space team is a step closer to having the necessary propulsion system for its GLXP moon lander. This photo shows a successful test of the torch igniter conducted last week.

The next step is to integrate the torch igniter with the rest of the rocket motor and to initiate the first firing test of the complete liquid bi-propellant system.

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LED Rover Dance

Previously we released a video of our rover showing off its dance moves for the Nagisa Music Festival, but we didn't have the time to set it to music. Since its so cute, we just had to let it dance a little more, this time to a musical accompaniment.

 

Mixing Music and Space

Who said engineering is not sexy? In this great video our Japanese moon rover is showing off some of its dance moves for the Nagisa Music Festival in Tokyo this coming weekend, coinciding with the solar eclipse.

Neat electric blue lights and precision point turning.. just what you need for a solar eclipse party!

 

And that's not the only outreach that our little rover is making into the music world...

Japanese members of the White Label Space team are also collaborating with jazz musicians. At Roppongi's softwind, space technology and jazz music jammed together as jazz musicians played famous pieces like "fly me to the moon" accompanied by a presentation of the White Label Space GLXP project.

It seems space technology is not just for geeks anymore!

Torch Igniter Testing Update

WLS team members have undertaken the first tests of the torch igniter design that will eventually be used set alight the throttleable motor on our lunar lander as it descends to the moon. The first tests were inconclusive and indicate the some tuning is needed for the propellant supply system, however that is expected to be resolved in the next couple of weeks.

Below are photos of some components of the torch igniter and the custom test rig that was built to support the tests.

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First Integration Steps for Rocket Motor Prototype

This video shows some of the preliminary integration activities for the throttleable rocket motor prototype currently being developed for the White Label Space lunar lander. It is a liquid bi-propellant motor using nitrous oxide and kerosene. It also features a spark ignition system.

The motor will be commercialized by the Dutch company EDL Hypersystems B.V..

WLS-J Introduces our GLXP Competitor Selenokhod

Continuing to introduce our Google Lunar X PRIZE competitors to the Japanese audience, Mr Atsushi Minegishi from our Japan office recorded this video (in Japanese) about the Selenokhod team.

Space Ventures Investors Partners with WLS

White Label Space is proud to announce its new partnership with Space Ventures Investors, an internationally focused venture addressing how private and institutional investors can invest in space. 

Through the partnership, White Label Space will have unique access to the Space Ventures Investors network and industry knowledge base whilst Space Ventures Investors will gain a window on the investment opportunities related to the Google Lunar X PRIZE and access to the technical expertise present in the team. 

Space Ventures Investors collects from individuals and organizations vital information about their investment appetite for the space sector and looks at how marketing can be used to change potential investors‘ views on investing in space. By monitoring selected space-related stocks it provides interested investors with space investment advice.

Space Ventures Investors is also researching how capital can be applied to the commercialization of space and identifying the key verticals that are accessible, offer value to the public, and modeled to meet return on investment criteria over a fixed period. Based on this know-how it is developing a range of space industry financial products to enable the private or institutional investor to actively invest in space.

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