The Armstrong robot, as wide as a large pizza, scoots forward on three wheels.
(Image: University of Colorado Boulder)The future of Moon exploration may be rolling around a non-descript office on the CU Boulder campus.
“It’s impressively immersive,” said O’Keefe, who earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering sciences from CU Boulder this spring.
“The first couple of times I used the VR, the robot was sitting in the corner, and it was really weird to see myself using it.”The Armstrong robot’s digital twin.
“Our efforts at CU Boulder are intended to make lunar robots more efficient and recoverable from errors, so precious astronaut time on the lunar surface will be better utilized.”The space group’s first hurdle: Creating a digital twin for Armstrong to roam around in.
The Armstrong robot, as wide as a large pizza, scoots forward on three wheels. (Image: University of Colorado Boulder)
The future of Moon exploration may be rolling around a non-descript office on the CU Boulder campus. Here, a robot about as wide as a large pizza scoots forward on three wheels. It uses an arm with a claw at one end to pick up a plastic block from the floor, then set it back down.
To be sure, this windowless office, complete with gray carpeting, is nothing like the Moon. And the robot, nicknamed “Armstrong,” wouldn’t last a minute on its frigid surface.
But the scene represents a new vision for space exploration — one in which fleets of robots working in tandem with people crawl across the lunar landscape, building scientific observatories or even human habitats.
Xavier O’Keefe operates the robot from a room down the hall. He wears virtual reality goggles that allow him to see through a camera mounted on top of Armstrong.
“It’s impressively immersive,” said O’Keefe, who earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering sciences from CU Boulder this spring. “The first couple of times I used the VR, the robot was sitting in the corner, and it was really weird to see myself using it.”
The Armstrong robot’s digital twin. (Image: Network for Exploration and Space Science)
He’s part of a team of current and former undergraduate students tackling a tricky question: How can humans on Earth get the training they need to operate robots on the hazardous terrain of the lunar surface? On the Moon, gravity is only about one-sixth as strong as it is on our planet. The landscape is pockmarked with craters, some cast in permanent darkness.
In a new study, O’Keefe and fellow CU Boulder alumni Katy McCutchan and Alexis Muniz report that “digital twins,” or hyper-realistic virtual reality environments, could provide a useful proxy for the Moon — giving people a chance to get the hang of driving robots without risking damage to multi-million-dollar equipment.
The study is funded by NASA and the Colorado company Lunar Outpost. It is part of a larger research effort led by Jack Burns, Astrophysics Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) and the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA).
“There was a lot of room to make mistakes with Armstrong since it wasn’t a million-dollar piece of hardware going to space,” said McCutchan, who earned her master’s degree in aerospace engineering sciences from CU Boulder in 2025. “It was a good sandbox to mess around in.”
For Burns, a co-author of the study, Armstrong and its VR digital twin represent a big leap forward, despite the robot’s humble appearance. Burns is part of a team that has received a grant from NASA to design a futuristic scientific observatory on the moon called FarView — which would be made up of a web of 100,000 antennas stretching over roughly 77 square miles of the lunar surface. Daniel Szafir of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill was also a co-author of the new study.
“Unlike the Apollo program where human astronauts did all the heavy lifting on the moon, NASA’s 21st century Artemis Program will combine astronauts and robotic rovers working in tandem,” Burns said. “Our efforts at CU Boulder are intended to make lunar robots more efficient and recoverable from errors, so precious astronaut time on the lunar surface will be better utilized.”
The space group’s first hurdle: Creating a digital twin for Armstrong to roam around in. To do that, the researchers began by creating a digital replica of their office in a video game engine called Unity — right down to the beige walls and drab carpet.
For more information, contact Daniel Strain at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Jack Burns at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
