By 
July 31st, 2024
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What does a parking lot in Altadena, California have to do with the Moon?
First of all, that area is in front of Honeybee Robotics.
Secondly, a sky-high test structure was recently erected to spotlight the group’s LUNARSABER, thankfully the truncated acronym for “Lunar Utility Navigation with Advanced Remote Sensing and Autonomous Beaming for Energy Redistribution.”
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics
Deployable mast
“LUNARSABER stands as a cornerstone for lunar infrastructure by providing key utility services at a fraction of the cost and accelerating the lunar economy for all humankind,” Honeybee’s Vishnu Sanigepalli told Inside Outer Space.
The deployable mast uses the Honeybee technology called DIABLO for Deployable Interlocking Actuated Bands for Linear Operations.
Proposed at over 100 meters tall, Honeybee’s LUNARSABER is a deployable structure that integrates solar power, power storage and transfer, communications, mesh network, PNT (Position, Navigation, and Timing), and surveillance into a single infrastructure.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Range of services
Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, was selected last year for DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study to develop and integrate its technology.
The idea is for LUNARSABER to stand head and shoulders above the lunar landscape.
This Moon structure can host payloads at its base for other commercial services to interface with the system. Also, payloads can be mounted at the top of the mast to perform a wide range of services.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Partnerships
“We’re looking forward to partnerships with both commercial and non-commercial customers to host payload and services that will help accelerate lunar infrastructure,” Sanigepalli said as principal investigator of LUNARSABER on LunA-10.
Honeybee Robotics captured LUNARSABER’s capabilities during a demonstration of a scaled prototype. Take a look at this informative video on the project at:
Posted in Space News
