Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (forms part of State Corporation Roscosmos) received patents as a patent owner for two inventions, i.e. engineer lunar vehicle and mobile cosmonaut extracabin activity support module on the Moon’s surface. The author of invention is Оleg Tsygankov, chief research scientist of the Corporation.

One of the future trends in manned cosmonautics is reconnaissance and economic operation of the Moon, natural Earth satellite. For solving these problems, various projects including the manned lunar base are considered.

When building up a jobsite of the lunar base station, especially, its zero circle, some early civil engineering works are to be carried out, for example, extracting ratchels into a disposal area, piling or cutting surface microrelief elements, ensuring structural protection of the station and other facilities by moon soil backing.

“According to RSC Energia’s concept the lunar station will be installed in a trench with an overhead floor structure to be mounted, and soil backing for radiation protection, namely, it is planned to be built on a basis of the underground open cut construction”, says Оleg Tsygankov about the invention applicability.

It is proposed to carry out various kinds of earthworks using a single-block multifunctional engineer vehicle which will consist of a truss frame, running gear, control panel and units, construction site and excavating equipment, tracklaying wheeled modules which can be transformed in wheeled running gears.

In its turn, the mobile cosmonaut extracabin activity support module is designed for operative human mobility over the Moon surface for the purpose of terrain reconnaissance, collection of required soil specimens, etc.