a rover robot takes off to the Moon with three cameras developed in Toulouse
On Wednesday, November 30, the Emirati rover Rashid will take off from Florida, towards the Moon. On board: Caspex cameras developed in Toulouse. These are the first French cameras sent to the Moon.
Objective moon ! On Wednesday, November 30 at 9:46 a.m. (Paris time), an Emirati robot named Rashid will take off from the Cape Canaveral launch base in Florida. Direction: the Moon. The rover robot is equipped with three Caspex cameras, developed by CNES in Toulouse.
It had been 50 years since French instruments had been sent to the Moon. This is a great first for the cameras. “It’s magic to think that there will be a little piece of us on the Moon, it has a magic side“, says Cédric Virmontois, Caspex project manager for this mission. These must provide images of the ground and the lunar environment with superior quality, in high definition.
The cameras were developed in 2015 by CNES in Toulouse, and the French company 3DPlus, which specializes in manufacturing electronic components.
We wanted to make a complete camera, with an image sensor and all the associated electronics, a bit like a camera.
Cedric VirmontoisEngineer at CNES Toulouse
These are small squares of a little less than 4cm on each side, for a featherweight of 64g. Perfect measurements for space exploration. “The specificity of the Caspex is that it can be adapted to all observation missions, it attaches to the rover. Before, it was necessary to make tailor-made for each mission with an associated electrical component», Explains Cédric Virmontois.
These cameras also have the advantage of not consuming a lot and being paid little. In the center, there is a small iridescent square, it is a light sensor, of the same type as those of our phones, on which lenses can be added.
For the mission, “on one put a wide angle lens, which goes to 120°, which allows us to see a detail of 1mm from more than a meter away“, details the Caspex project manager. The second camera attached to the front of the robot will have a lens similar to that of a microscope, to observe the size of the grains. A Caspex will also be at the rear of the rover. to help him back down.
The development of these cameras took a little more than three years, to adapt them as well as possible to the extreme conditions on the Moon. Many tests have been carried out on Earth.
The engineer numerals: ” the cameras were irradiated by rays, placed under vacuum at temperatures ranging from -55°C to +125°C with high humidity.“
They were also subjected to intense vibrations, which reproduce the takeoff of the rocket to observe if they held the shock. Many steps that, beyond the design, take one to two years.
The landing on the Moon of the “Rashid” rover should take place in March 2023. For 8 to 10 days, the cameras will study the lunar soil, the geology of the star, but also the movement of its dust.
Part of the images will be used to guide the rover and the others will be used for scientific research.
Cedric VirmontoisCNES engineer in Toulouse
Today, more than 500 cameras of this type are already in orbit in space and on Mars. CNES continues to work to improve these small, very resistant cameras. A whole new generation of Caspex with an even higher resolution of pixels should be born. “We are trying to develop one with more pixels and therefore more advanced processing and another infrared“, adds the engineer.
In the next few years, other cameras take off. In 2024, the MMX mission plans to drop a rover on one of the Martian moons, Phobos, to provide a 3D view of the landscape. And finally, in 2025, other caspexes will go to the Moon as part of the “Rashid 2” mission.