Case study / field robotics

Break the Ice: lunar excavation tested as field operations

Cislune used NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge to test the connected problem: excavation, hauling, autonomy supervision, power, reliability, and field logistics over sustained operations.

Discuss a field demonstration

Break the Ice lunar excavation and ISRU challenge hardware context — Cislune’s Break the Ice excavation and transport system in field configuration.

15 daysMojave Desert field operations in 2023

3,280+ kgExcavated and transported during the campaign

77 cycles / 87 kmRepeated excavation, transit, and delivery

The operating question

Can the system keep working after the first successful demo?

Field robotics exposes the connections that laboratory demonstrations can hide. Hardware must survive dust and repeated cycles. Operators need useful telemetry and recovery paths. Mobility, excavation, energy, logistics, and maintenance all compete for time and margin.

Cislune’s campaign treated the rover as an operating system in the literal sense: a machine, a field team, procedures, spares, transport, data, and daily iteration working together.

Evidence from the field

Sustained work built practical excavation and mobility judgment.

Break the Ice field view for excavation and resource handling — Field operations connected excavation hardware with transport and delivery workflows.

Break the Ice excavation setup and lunar analog testing — The excavation setup was developed and maintained under lunar-analog field conditions.

Break the Ice challenge operations view — Challenge operations required hardware, people, procedures, and logistics to work as one system.

Break the Ice hardware view for lunar excavation work — Cislune’s field hardware created a foundation for later excavation and ISRU programs.

NASA finals

The rover carried 80 kg through every challenging shortcut.

NASA’s published final-results paper records Cislune transporting an 80 kg payload and returning to the start in 18 minutes 58 seconds. The rover traversed the extreme inline slope, boulder field, and cross-slope shortcuts in both directions.

That result sits beside the longer Mojave campaign: a concise NASA comparison event backed by weeks of Cislune field experience.

NASA finalist announcement NASA results paper Original field story

Use the heritage

A field campaign is where hardware becomes an operating capability.

Cislune can support excavation and mobility demonstrations, analog campaigns, test logistics, subsystem integration, procedure development, and the difficult work of turning isolated successes into repeatable operations.

Plan a field campaign