Team AngelicvM is a private company based in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

that plans to deploy a small

rover Rover may refer to: People * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Places * Rover, Arkansas, US * Rover, Missouri, US * ...

on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. Their rover, called ''Unity'', is one of various rovers that will be carried by the commercial ''Peregrine'' lander manufactured by

Astrobotic Technology Astrobotic Technology is an American privately held company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates with the goal of w ...

History

Team AngelicvM was created in 2010 in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, with the purpose to compete for the

Google Lunar X Prize The Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP), sometimes referred to as Moon 2.0, was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be th ...

.Team AngelicvM Will Fly with Astrobotic on First Lunar Mission
Astrobotic Technology Press Release. 27 October 2015. This international competition offered US$20 million for the first privately developed rover to land on the Moon, travel at least 500 meters, and transmit high-definition video and images back to Earth. Since no team was able to make a launch attempt to reach the Moon by the 31 March 2018 deadline, the Google Lunar XPRIZE went unclaimed and the competition ended without a winner, but AngelicvM plans to go ahead with the rover's development and launch. Team AngelicvM is financed by AngelicvM Foundation (''Inversiones AngelicvM''); its owner and President is Gerardo Rocha-Haardt, who by 2012 has financed about US$3 million. Rocha-Haardt explained that since there is no space agency in Chile, he hopes to inspire and stimulate the private sector's participation in the outer space economy.Chile's first lunar rover nears completion
Chile's Education, Science and Technology NEWS. 18 December 2012. Rocha-Haardt invited all Chilean universities to participate in the project. They were joined by the

Universidad de Concepción Universidad (Spanish for "university") may refer to: Places * Universidad, San Juan, Puerto Rico * Universidad (Madrid) Football clubs * Universidad SC, a Guatemalan football club that represents the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala ...

and

Universidad Austral de Chile Austral University of Chile ( es, Universidad Austral de Chile or UACh) is a Chilean research university based primarily in Valdivia, Chile, Valdivia, with a satellite campus in Puerto Montt. Founded on September 7, 1954, it is one of the eight or ...

, that are developing the rover.El Team AngelicvM presentó su rover AngelicvM 1
Felipe Campos ''Cosmo Noticias''. 27 June 2013. (in Spanish). AngelicvM signed a contract with

in 2015 to have their rover carried on board Astrobotic's ''Peregrine'' lander, and in July 2017, Astrobotic announced an agreement had been reached with

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, a ...

for the launch. As of May 2018, Astrobotic's first ''Peregrine'' lander mission is reported to have 12 customers, and is planned to be launched in 2020 on an

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture be ...

rocket. The selected landing site is

Lacus Mortis Lacus Mortis (Latin ''mortis'', "Lake of Death") is a hexagonal-shaped plain of basaltic lava flows in the northeastern part of the Moon's near face. It was formed as a floor-fractured crater during the pre-Imbrian epoch, then flooded during the ...

. The lander's commercial payload include Team

Hakuto Announcement: New Team Name i ...

's rover.

''Unity'' rover

The first rover's concept was called ''Dandelion''. Its body was spherical of about 10 cm in diameterLa silenciosa carrera espacial chilena
Valentina Echeverría, ''Km Zero.'' Accessed : 4 August 2018. (in Spanish) with a flat top and bottom. It uses two bilateral "legged" wheels for traction and it keeps upright by a

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the ...

. This light traction concept was inspired on insect legs, and it was considered because that is what all insects evolved for efficient displacement on uneven surfaces.Dandelion rover
Robotic & Environmental Algorithms Laboratory (REAL). Accessed: 4 August 2018. Adding some flexibility to each blade/leg, it imitates the tendon in the insect leg and holds potential energy for better traction. Preliminary tests performed in Chile's Atacama desert were reported to surpass their predicted expectations. AngelicvM's current rover concept is a 5 kg, four-wheeled rover called ''Unity''. The team has 34 members, all professionals and mostly volunteers. Their transmission to Earth will be a high-definition music video that carries "a message of faith, hope, peace and unity to the World.

References

External links

AngelicvM FoundationImages of 4 ''Dandelion'' rover concepts
{{Future spaceflights Google Lunar X Prize Proposed space probes Lunar rovers Peregrine Payloads