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For Audi to win the space race, Quattro must cover a distance of 500 meters and take many photos.
BEACON TRANSCRIPT – With 2015’s Space Act, more and more private companies seem eager to join the space exploration race. Recently, Audi joined the space race with a cat-sized lunar rover, capable of traversing ever the roughest environment.
Audi’s lunar rover dubbed the Quattro Lunar Rover was showcased at the North American Auto Show which took place in Detroit, in the 11th of January.
Auto fans coming in to view the latest trends in car technology discovered that one of the vehicles showcased at the auto presentation was not like the others. Stashed away in a dark corner was a tiny vehicle, all shriveled and alone. According to the car maker, size isn’t an issue for the tiny explorer, because the Quattro Rover passed all the tests with flying color.
The Quattro Lunar Rover represents the collaboration between the German carmaker and a researcher branch entitles the Part-Time Scientists. According to team’s statements, this year they are very keen at winning the 30 million dollar prize offered by Google.
PST enrolled in this year’s XPrize competition to show everyone that the Berlin-based carmaker is actually capable of making more than cars.
According to the team of scientists behind this project, the Quattro rover is outfitted with aluminum panels, which makes the lunar exploration vehicle both fast and resilient. Moreover, in order to make sure that the space explorers is up to all the challenges it would have to face out there, the team outfitted it with a novel 4-wheel traction technology.
The rover will be able to navigate across all types of terrain thanks to its novel traction system which lets the wheels perform a 360 degrees motion. The lunar exploration micromachine also features a set of high-power batteries, which are able to keep the vehicle running for extended periods of time.
And if the rover runs out of juice, then it can whip out its solar panels for a quick recharge. According to PTS, the tiny rover has already been tested on the field and will be up and running of the upcoming competition. Quattro will be launched into space in 2017 and everybody is eager to see how Audi’s new concept will perform.
Audi joined the space race with a cat-sized lunar rover packed with solar batteries, 4-wheeled transmission system, and aluminum armor. To win the race, the rover must land safely of the Moon. After that, the vehicle must prove that it is capable of covering a 500 meters distance. And, last of all, during the trip, the vehicle will have to take lots of photos and post them on social media.
One last thing, in order to ensure that the vehicle will be able to navigate on the Moon’s surface, the team of scientists outfitted Quattro with stereoscopic cameras.
Photo credits:www.wikipedia.org
