STELLAR Lunar Rover Design and Build for Google Lunar X-prize [2008-09]

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The Lunar X-prize was established to promote private exploration on the moon. It is a new space race; to be the first to successfully land and drive a rover on the moon. 



North Carolina State University formed team STELLAR to compete in this race. The project included several months of conceptual design and sizing. Once things were set, a prototype was built and tested. The rover was capable of speeds of almost 10 mph and was estimated to have a battery life of over 10 hours, without solar panels. Unfortunately, second tier funding created the bottleneck that eventually halted the project altogether.