{"id":166849,"date":"2023-07-04T01:24:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T06:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/robotic-light-bender-on-the-moon-could-help-artemis-astronauts-keep-the-lights-on"},"modified":"2023-07-04T01:24:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T06:24:41","slug":"robotic-light-bender-on-the-moon-could-help-artemis-astronauts-keep-the-lights-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/robotic-light-bender-on-the-moon-could-help-artemis-astronauts-keep-the-lights-on","title":{"rendered":"Robotic \u2018Light Bender\u2019 on the moon could help Artemis astronauts keep the lights on"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/robotic-light-bender-on-the-moon-could-help-artemis-astronauts-keep-the-lights-on2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of what we\u2019re doing is conceptually simple, reflecting sunlight to a solar panel located in the dark,\u201d said Maxar Chief Robotics Architect and lead for Light Bender Sean Dougherty in a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.maxar.com\/space-infrastructure\/2023\/out-of-the-shadows-robotics-project-could-power-the-moons-darkest-places\" target=\"_blank\">Maxar statement<\/a>. \u201cWhere it gets complex is doing that without humans involved. We\u2019re leveraging investments in autonomy to study how NASA can use robots to assemble and deploy a set of reflectors that keep sunlight focused on a solar panel operating in the shadows. It\u2019s never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Light Bender works by hoisting two 33-foot (10-meter) reflectors up a 65-foot (20-meter) telescoping mast. One mirror autonomously tracks the sun and reflects that light to the second mirror, which then reflects those rays towards the intended solar panels.<\/p>\n<p>The Light Bender project is a collaboration between Maxar and NASA\u2019s Langley Research Center, and is scheduled for its first terrestrial demonstration in 2025. The company was awarded the contract in May 2023, under NASA\u2019s Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity Program. For their part, NASA\u2019s team is responsible for Light Bender\u2019s structural design, and Maxar is taking the lead on the robotics \u2014 an aptitude for which the company has demonstrated in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cPart of what we\u2019re doing is conceptually simple, reflecting sunlight to a solar panel located in the dark,\u201d said Maxar Chief Robotics Architect and lead for Light Bender Sean Dougherty in a Maxar statement. \u201cWhere it gets complex is doing that without humans involved. We\u2019re leveraging investments in autonomy to study how NASA can use [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1633,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai","category-solar-power","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}