The scope of science and technology is expanding with time, and the most excellent example of this can be seen in NASA’s new project. NASA recently announced that NASA wants to build the first fully functioning railway station on the Moon to provide reliable, autonomous, transportation services. It is extremely interesting to think that railway services are being started on another planet far away from Earth.
NASA wants to build the first fully functioning railway station on the Moon to provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient payload transportation around the lunar surface. But, this train will be a little different from the one we have on Earth. Dubbed flexible levitation on track (FLOAT), the system will use magnetic levitation on a 3-layer flexible film track. These would be unpowered magnetic robots that fly above the graphite layer and passively float on tracks using diamagnetic levitation.
Unlike lunar robots with wheels, legs, or tracks, float robots will have no moving parts and will fly on tracks to reduce friction or wear from moon dust, NASA said. These tracks are unrolled directly onto lunar regolith to avoid major on-site construction – unlike conventional roads, railways, or cableways. Float design robots will be capable of carrying payloads of varying sizes at speeds of up to 0.5 meters per second, while a large-scale float system will be capable of carrying up to 100,000 kilograms of regolith per day over several kilometers.
As work progresses, Phase 2 of development will design, build, and test a series of subsurface robotic, tracked prototypes, culminating with performance in lunar-analog testing and measurement of environmental impacts on system performance. The impact will be examined.
NASA emphasized the indispensable role of a resilient, enduring robotic transportation infrastructure for the day-to-day functioning of a permanent lunar settlement slated for the 2030s. This necessity is underscored by initiatives such as the Moon to Mars plan and Robotic Lunar Surface Operations 2 (RLSO2), which outline mission concepts to achieve this objective.
