The CESAR robot, winner of the first ESA Lunar Robotics Challenge

A robot rover designed by a Bremen university team has won an ESA contest to retrieve soil samples from a lunar-style terrestrial crater. Eight student teams fielded rovers during the event, their progress monitored by an advanced 3-D viewer already flight-tested in space and planned for eventual deployment on the Moon.

Craters surrounding the Moon's poles are a top 21st Century science target. Lunar researchers believe these craters may be 'cold traps', preserving ancient water ice deposits. Such ice would not only be an invaluable time capsule, it would also support manned lunar settlements. But the only way to verify the ice is there is to go fetch it, which is where rovers come in.

The bleak pumice landscape of Minas de San José within Tenerife's Teide National Park stood in for the Moon during the inaugural ESA Lunar Robotics Challenge (LRC). Built within strict size, weight and power constraints, the rovers had to descend down the steep 40° slopes of a 15-metre deep crater, grab 0.1 kg of specifically selected soil then carry it out again – all the while in darkness.

Working from a trailer camp 2000 metres up, each five-strong team was confronted with some distinctly non-lunar weather including heavy rain and clouds. In the event only one rover managed to complete the assignment –Bremen's three-wheeled CESAR (Crater Exploration and Sample Return) robot, duly judged LRC winner on 26 October.

Erasmus Recording Binocular in use during the Lunar Robotic Challenge

The rovers were not the only hardware undergoing field testing. "The location was an excellent place to exercise the capabilities of the Erasmus Recording Binocular (ERB)," explained Massimo Sabbatini of ESA's Human Spaceflight Directorate. "This innovative high-resolution stereo-video recorder will become part of the standard toolset of astronauts when surveying lunar areas."

Despite being more than 2000 km away from the European mainland the test site was kept linked with the internet by a satellite ground station provided by ESA's Telecom Directorate, which enabled remote team members to follow the event and even debug rover software as needed.

Francesco Feliciani of ESA’s Telecom Directorate said: "The successful live transmission of the videos streams from the LRC proves that the technology is ready to be used in real life applications.”

The broadband-quality transmission was made possible by the ESA co-funded AmerHis regenerative payload hosted aboard Hispatsat’s Amazonas spacecraft. AmerHis works as an internet router in the sky.

Stefano Badessi also of ESA Telecom commented: “Our satellite terminal allowed those team members who could not be on the Teide in person to watch how their teammates were faring.”