A while back, we started "Project Kascar," a development program to research, design, and build rovers.  The main purpose of this program is to build a rover capable of carrying Bill Kerman from his crashed lander up to a nearby high plateau.

At the time we introduced this project, we had the RC-0 rover prototype available for display.  A short while ago, I took a production RC-0 to the Mun for testing.  It worked well, and was surprisingly robust, surviving quite the tumble down the side of a munar mountainside.  However, it did have a pretty obvious limitation, in that the maximum speed was around 14 meters per second, and even a moderate slope was more than it could successfully climb.

The RC-0 was a good start, so we kept the basic concept.  But for the RC-1, we've made it both a bit longer and wider, and as should be obvious, we've added a lot more wheels.  The RC-1 has a total of twelve driven wheels.  That should make it go a lot faster.

After the usual round of publicity photos, I hopped back into the RC-1 and headed out into the grasslands around the Kerbal Space Center.  I'm happy to say that I reached a top speed of 24 meters per second.  It didn't take me more than a few minutes to cross the grasslands and reach the low mountains nearby.  I made a point of hitting lots of bumps at all sorts of angles, and the ride remained stable.

The RC-1 carried me to the top of the nearest mountain here near the KSC.  It was slow going on the slopes, but clearly we've got a more capable rover than the RC-0.  We hope for more munar trials soon.

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