Soft Deployable Airless Wheel for Lunar Lava Tube Exploration

Seong-Bin Lee, Namsuk Cho, Junseo Kim, Dae-Young Lee

Keywords: Lunar exploration, Lava tubes, Planetary robotics, Mobile robots, Deployable structures, Reconfigurable mechanisms

TL;DR: A soft, deployable airless wheel enables reliable and effective multi-rover lunar pit exploration.

Abstract: Lunar pits and lava tubes have attracted significant attention as important targets for future exploration and habitation because they may provide access to subsurface geological records and naturally shielded environments. However, exploration of these sites requires a mission sequence including pit approach, subsurface entry through steep or vertical sections, and cave traversal, which is difficult to support with a conventional single-rover platform alone. This paper discusses the applicability of a soft deployable airless wheel and carrier–explorer architecture for lunar lava tube exploration. In the proposed concept, multiple compact rovers are transported onboard a carrier in a stowed configuration and, after deployment, use the deployable wheel for pit approach and subsurface entry. Results showed that the proposed wheel expands from approximately 230 mm to 500 mm in diameter, traverses 200 mm stair-like obstacles, achieves stable locomotion on simulated lunar soil, and maintains structural integrity under an impact condition corresponding to an approximately 100 m free fall under lunar gravity. Applicability to thermal-vacuum and high-temperature environments was also supported. These characteristics suggest that the proposed wheel can serve as a promising enabling hardware element for compact multi-explorer lunar subsurface missions.

Submission Number: 16