The Next Giant Leaps

From spider robots to antennas on the Cornish coast, these UK-based projects are laying the groundwork for a permanent station on the Moon

- Dr Stuart Clark

About this time next year, a small robotic spider may be taking its first tentative steps on the Moon. It’s not exactly The Spiders From Mars, but the late David Bowie will have played a part in getting it there.

Pavlo Tanasyuk, CEO and founder of the British company Spacebit, remembers once listening to David Bowie’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and wondering about one day building rovers with legs rather than wheels. The idea lay dormant until Tanasyuk was visiting a friend at the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA), and mentioned his long-held idea of a spider robot on Mars or the Moon. The friend responded immediately with the Japanese proverb of the asagumo, the morning spider who brings fortune. “That’s when it clicked, and I decided that we actually should be doing this rover,” says Tanasyuk.

He incorporated the UK company Spacebit to begin developing the asagumo spider robot. The launch is now scheduled for July 2021, on board the Peregrine lander that has been developed by the private American company Astrobotic. Peregrine will be flown on a Vulcan Centaur rocket, and if all goes to plan, asagumo will be the UK’s first lunar lander.

Walking on the Moon is tricky because of the regolith, which is the layer of rock fragments and dust that covers the lunar surface. For a walking rover, the dangers are two-fold. First, the legs can sink into this layer, impeding the movement. Second, the dust and fragments can get into the articulated parts of the legs and the motors, causing them to cease up.