High-Level Project Summary
We designed an energy storage system that can support a ground-based lander or rover on the surface of Venus for at least 60 days. We plan to use wind on Venus to generate energy and pneumatics to store it. It is also suitable for cooling rover`s electronics due to the expansion of the atmosphere of Venus. Our goal is to study the ground of Venus. We believe that our device will be able to operate on Venus for more than 60 days and gather data that will change the way people think about this planet.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
We have been solving the problem of providing the required amount of energy by generating it using a wind generator. On the surface of Venus, the wind is slow, but thanks to the very high density of the atmosphere, even this is enough to generate the necessary amount of energy. We have developed a concept of a wind generator for Venus with a vertical axis of rotation, which, according to our calculations, produces 125 W using a wind speed of 2 m/s and a density of atmosphere 67 kg/m3. This windmill can be installed on a rover, the chassis of which is a complete mechanism to adapt to the harsh conditions of Venus. The wheels are driven by springs, the energy is transmitted through cardan gears, which allow adding to the structure damping elements with torsion suspension, which is necessary due to the landscape of Venus. The chassis is made of refractory alloys and carbon fiber and is almost independent of electronics. The primary energy storage method is pneumatic, which we believe is one of the best ways to store energy on Venus at extreme temperatures. When the windmill rotates, the shaft will set the pistons in motion and thereby pump up the balloon with the atmosphere of Venus. Electric energy is produced by a turbine with a generator and is used to operate scientific equipment. At the same time, the gases exhausted in the turbine will be used for the cooling system. Excess mechanical energy from the windmill "charges" the springs of the chassis. In the absence of wind, automation controls the process of energy generation by the turbogenerator due to the lower pressure in the cylinder. All electrical parts, namely all scientific and communication equipment, are located in a special compartment, which can be called a "refrigerator" to improve the operation of electronic devices. The cooling system or "refrigerator" is maintained at the required temperature by a cylinder, which is used to store gas at a lower pressure relative to external conditions. Gas from the outside passes through the throttle and thereby cools and cools the system. The refrigerator is a heat-insulated container, like a thermos compartment made of several layers of very strong material, due to the fact that a very large difference in pressure is required, the strength must be enormous. The wheel steering mechanism is made of cables and motors connected by a belt drive. The bike has three pairs of wheels, where the first and third pairs are steering wheels. The turning motors are located in the "refrigerator", which greatly complicates steering with the third axle of the wheels. Due to the presence of a "refrigerator" in the front part, the front pair has no drive and is only steering. The main purpose of the rover is to explore Venus and to close the great void in the understanding of this planet, which arose due to the harshness of this planet, which made it impossible to explore Venus with automatic devices. Unlike all previous missions to the surface of Venus, that had been designed to operate for short durations (less than two hours), our project is able to secure the collection of scientific data from the surface of this planet for at least 2 months.
To develop our project we used Blender and Autodesk Fusion360 for 3D modeling.
Space Agency Data
Hackathon Journey
We had a fun experience over the weekend and tried out the new knowledge.
NASA SpaceApps Challenge is a very interesting event that we all came to get an unforgettable experience working with NASA open data. At the hackathon we got such incredibly cool solutions to a very complex idea that we all agree that we learned something. The hackathon made it possible to meet people who are so unique that it was only for their sake that you could go here. The project we did is already very thorough, so some of us want to continue working on it after the hackathon.
References
To analyze the information about the atmosphere of Venus and to calculate wind power, its directions, places with the most stable wind, temperatures were used:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/by-the-numbers/
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/overview/
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/in-depth/
For 3D modeling we used: Blender and Autodesk Fusion360.
Tags
#Venus, #nasaspaceapps, #wind, #VenusForFuture, #VenusForHumanity