14 Jun Luke Fritsche RoSE Lab Internship Week 1

Week 1 of the internship is already over! It felt so fast but it was very fun and interesting!

I am working at the RoSE Lab at the Colorado School of Mines for this summer. RoSE stands for Robotics Space Exploration Lab, and it specializes in making lunar rovers and studying regolith, which is the term for lunar “soil.” I am working specifically on a team working on an IPEx rover replica, which is a NASA excavation rover used to collect lunar regolith that will be launched in a 2029 mission. The work I got to do this week was extremely interesting, mostly research and physics work, such as determining certain aspects about the rover to ensure it works properly. Some examples were the width the wheels will need to be to make sure the rover does not sink into the ground and how much torque the motors that spin the drills need to be in order to properly excavate the regolith. I also got to work on other aspects of the rover, such as making software maps and finding candidate motors to use. Midway through the week, we held a team meeting and I got to present the work I had done for the rover and discuss it with the rest of the team. The rover is currently in the design and research phase but expects to start assembly soon.

Aside from work, living in Golden has been great so far. I live with 2 roommates, Evan Stogner and Gunnar Robinson, who are also doing internships at the School of Mines. We have had a great time exploring Golden. It is a beautiful town with lots to do and many nearby hiking and biking trails. We got memberships at a nearby Rec Center and have spent a lot of time swimming there and went tubing in the nearby river this weekend. We have made all of our food here with groceries we got from Denver, although we plan to start checking out some of the nearby restaurants in the coming weeks.

This week has been amazing and I cannot wait for the rest of the internship!