If you’re on the moon and your phone is dying, there aren’t many places you can plug in a charger. But Honeybee Robotics has outlined a plan to build a network of towers the size of the Statue of Liberty, along with an electrical grid containing solar panels and batteries that provide power, communications, and even act as street lights.
Humans haven't set foot on the Moon in more than 50 years, but NASA's Artemis mission plans to send them back soon. And this time, they're there to stay — the program aims to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface and in orbit, and eventually lay the groundwork for a journey to Mars.
Establishing a human colony on the Moon would, of course, require some infrastructure. Companies like Nokia are helping to build 4G networks for communications, and Northrop Grumman is developing a lunar railway concept to transport astronauts, supplies, and equipment.
The latter is part of the 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study, and Honeybee Robotics has been selected as part of the same initiative to develop a new infrastructure technology it calls LUNARSABER. Of course, that’s a classically clumsy acronym, and apparently stands for “Lunar Auxiliary Navigation with Advanced Remote Sensing and Autonomous Teleportation for Energy Redistribution.” You can give it fancy names like LUNARSABER if you want, guys! You don’t have to pretend it stands for anything.
Each LUNARSABER will be a deployable package that deploys into a 100-meter (328 ft) tall tower via another scary acronym, Deployable Interlocking Actuator Bands for Linear Operations, or DIABLO.
Honey Bee Robotics
Each tower will contain a mix of solar panels, batteries, wireless power and communications transmission equipment, and even lights. They will be able to generate power from the two weeks of uninterrupted sunlight the lunar surface experiences, store it locally, and save it for the two weeks of darkness that follow.
Honeybee built two types of solar panels. One is an “origami bellows” that wraps around the pole and provides 360-degree coverage to capture sunlight from every angle. The other unfurls large sails and keeps them at the optimum angle by tracking the position of the Sun in the sky. When positioned near the Moon’s south pole, the team says this provides access to about 95% of sunlight throughout the year.
Special dust-resistant plugs at the bottom could power equipment locally. Or, a network of these poles within line of sight of each other could allow them to transmit their energy and wireless communication signals over long distances, creating a lunar grid that connects different outposts and even vehicles.
For example, let's say your lunar rover runs out of power in the middle of the lunar night and there are 8 days until dawn. A nearby LUNARSABER can aim a concentrated beam of sunlight at its solar panels to get it moving again.
Lights attached to gimbals on the outside of the ship can act like streetlights, breaking up the darkness of the two-week night and preventing the first human settlers from being robbed by aliens.
Honey Bee Robotics
It’s a fun sci-fi concept, but of course there’s still a lot of work to be done before LUNARSABERs are scattered all over the Moon. NASA’s original plan was to send humans back there this year, but that’s now been delayed until the end of 2026. A major infrastructure like that will be in place much later than that, if at all.
The Honeybee team discusses this concept in the video below.
LUNARSABER: Strengthening Human Presence on the Moon
Source: Honeybee Robotics