Hunveyor - Design and Construction

Design and Construction

The clear construction and the well recognizable instrumentation of the NASA Surveyors (which were built in the Surveyor program and which landed on the Moon between 1966 and 1968) have given the possibility to construct an educational version of the space probe. In 1997, the teachers and students of the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Department of General Technology examined the literature published on Surveyor missions and a group led by Szaniszlo Berczi constructed the Hunveyor-1 with robotic arm and TV camera (similar to Surveyor 3) with some other simple measurements on board.

Construction of a Surveyor-type planetary lander is one of the space science education programs on Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary. It focuses on both planetary science and technologies. The new initiative of experimental space probe model construction uses interactions between measuring instruments and environmental streams. Similar is the case between artificially planned technologies and environmental currents (water, wind flows, other transport mechanisms). All these activities are involved in the construction and continuous development of a training and experimental space probe model.

Students played an important role in the construction of this Hunveyor probe. The first training space probe lander, Hunveyor-1, was initiated at the Eotvos University, Department of General Technology, in October 1997. It had two previous ideas helping to start the Hunveyor program. First: the space science education program by activities (i.e. by construction) was the essential program in NASA International Space Camp, Huntsville, Alabama, USA. There, every year, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center organizes an International Space Camp where all participant countries delegate two students (high-school age) and their accompanying teacher. The strength and value of the in situ experiments in space science education were experienced by several Hungarian teachers and students during the last 10 years. Second: the program had been helped by Eugene Shoemaker who sent to Szaniszlo Berczi scientific materials about the Surveyor program in the late 1960s.

In 1998 the program was continued on other universities and colleges in Hungary: in Pecs University, Dept. of Informatics and General Technology (Sandor Hegyi, head) where the Hunveyor-2 has been built, then in 2000 on the Berzsenyi College, Dept. of Technology (Zsolt Kovacs, head) and in 2001 in the Kandó Kálmán College in Szekesfehervar (Gyorgy Hudoba, head) where the Hunveyor-3 and Hunveyor-4 has been built, respectively. In 2003 this program of Hunveyor construction has been extended in the high schools, too. In Pannonhalma, at the Saint Benedict Pannonhalma Archabbey's Gymnasium (Ambrus Pinter, head) the Hunveyor-7 is in construction. Three other high schools in Hungary also participate in the project of building the space probe model.

The Hunveyor program is: construction of a planetary lander model, the experimental part, from the very beginning of the work. Important goal is: measuring the interactions between instruments (technologies) and environmental currents (water, wind flows, other transport mechanisms). Planning, construction, carrying out testing activities, and also the continuous development of the training space probe model are also important parts of the program with the Surveyor type Hunveyor.

Students played important role in the construction of this Hunveyor probe which shows that the training space probe lander model Hunveyor is an intensive experimental tool for education. It concentrates and focuses efforts

• how to teach technologies and
• how to teach planetary science,
• how to connect disciplinary knowledge.

It involves theoretical education and practice in construction and technologies.

The first level of this work was a minimal space probe model for experiments, while the first unit was a tetrahedral skeleton (Surveyor-like) as a holding frame. For a minimal probe the personal minimal environmental observations and activities in a new environment were copied: visuality, touch, temperature experience. Television camera with mirror to "see around", telescopic arm to dig small graben, and a bimetallic temperature-measuring instrument can be corresponded to them. Passive magnets were also fixed on the legs.