What’s the connection between Transformers and one of the most innovative lunar rovers to have been invented? The answer is this wonderful example of using partnerships and external perspectives to challenge norms. JAXA, the Japanese space agency, asked Takara Tomy (the company behind toys such as Transformers, amongst many others) to design it’s small lunar rover, called SORA-Q (or LEV, short for Lunar Exercusion Vehicle).
The rover is the size of a baseball, and is ejected from the lander just before final landing (you can see a picture of it here, which I can’t use here unfortunately because of usage rights). The rover can then extend out its two halves (kind of like a Transformer does) to crawl across the lunar surface using two wheels and then reveal two cameras which can send pictures back to Earth.
JAXA’s lunar lander had a few problems on final descent which meant that it ended up landing at the wrong attitude but Tomy’s rover worked perfectly, sending pictures of the lander back to JAXA mission control which showed them what had happened to the lander.
Boldness in innovation doesn’t only mean thinking creatively about sources of inspiration. It also means thinking laterally about partnerships, collaborations and external perspectives and how these can help you to solve a problem in a totally unexpected or genuinely different way.
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Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
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