NASA Advances JPL’s Lunar Railway Concept to New Phase

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) has selected six visionary concept studies for additional funding and development, including a lunar railway system being developed at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The Flexible Levitation on a Track (FLOAT) concept, led by Ethan Schaler at JPL, aims to create a durable, long-life robotic transport system that will be critical to the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030s.

“These diverse, science fiction-like concepts represent a fantastic class of Phase II studies,” said John Nelson, NIAC program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Our NIAC fellows never cease to amaze and inspire, and this class definitely gives NASA a lot to think about in terms of what’s possible in the future.”

The FLOAT system employs unpowered magnetic robots that levitate over a 3-layer flexible film track, utilizing diamagnetic levitation, electromagnetic thrust, and optional thin-film solar panels for power generation. This design minimizes lunar dust abrasion and wear on the robots, which have no moving parts, unlike lunar robots with wheels, legs, or tracks.

FLOAT tracks can be unrolled directly onto the lunar regolith, avoiding major on-site construction, and individual robots will be able to transport payloads of varying shapes and sizes at useful speeds. A large-scale FLOAT system is expected to be capable of moving up to 100,000s kg of regolith mined or construction and transport payloads around the lunar base and to/from landing zones or other outposts multiple kilometers per day, operating autonomously in the harsh lunar environment with minimal site preparation. 

The FLOAT system’s network of tracks can be rolled-up and reconfigured over time to match evolving lunar base mission requirements.

In Phase II, the FLOAT team will continue to retire risks related to the manufacture, deployment, control, and long-term operation of meter-scale robots and kilometer-scale tracks. They will design, manufacture, and test a series of sub-scale robot and track prototypes, culminating with a demonstration in a lunar-analog testbed.

The team will also investigate the impacts of environmental effects on system performance and longevity, define a technology roadmap to address gaps and mature manufacturing capability for critical hardware, and refine simulations of FLOAT system designs to provide improved performance estimates. 

The FLOAT team will leverage sub-scale prototypes to explore opportunities for follow-on technology demonstrations on sub-orbital flights (via Flight Opportunities/TechFlights) or lunar technology demos (via LSII/CLPS landers).

The NIAC program, funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, is responsible for developing the agency’s new cross-cutting technologies and capabilities to achieve its current and future missions. 

The FLOAT concept, along with the other five selected studies — Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE), Pulsed Plasma Rocket, The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths (GO-LoW), Radioisotope Thermoradiative Cell Power Generator, and ScienceCraft for Outer Planet Exploration — will receive up to $600,000 to continue working over the next two years to address key remaining technical and budget hurdles and pave their development path forward. If selected for the final NIAC phase, these concepts could earn additional funding and development consideration toward becoming future aerospace missions.

To learn more about NIAC and the 2024 Phase II studies, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/stmd-the-nasa-innovative-advanced-concepts-niac/