Science
NASA selects a lander in order to carry its water tracking robot to the moon
By the late 2023, NASA announces that space robotics firm Astrobotic will send a water chase rover to the Moon. It is still a matter of whether a rocket will start its commercial mission, but an Astrobotic Lunar Lander will lead the golf cart rover down to the Moon surface.
NASA's Polar Exploration Route, or VIPER, is going to search water ice on the southern lunar pole to seek to see the amount of water in the region's permanently shadowed craters. In hopes of being able to draw water for future flights, NASA needs to map where water is.
As part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, Astrobotic has been chosen from a selection of other commercial suppliers. CLPS is intended to support NASA's Artemis programme, which aims to put the first woman on the Moon by 2024, by sending payloads to the Moon. This CLPS agreement is valued at $199.5 million.
Astrobot has not yet chosen which rocket to start the VIPER mission. However, in 2021, Astrobotics is planning a new landing on the Moon to fly the next-generation Vulcan rocket on that mission. The company is going to use a smaller lander called Peregrine during its 2021 mission to supply NASA and others with several small payloads to the moon.
On the Griffin lander in Astrobotic, a lander six feet high and almost 15 feet long, the VIPER rover would fly down to the lunar surface. Once landed, a 100-day mission will begin with the solar-powered rover.
Researchers plan to cover approximately 12 miles on VIPER and use a drill to find water resources on the Moon and plan them for them. In contrast to Mars rovers, the VIPER can be controlled directly by Earth operators and can explore the area in almost real time.
VIPER is the first rover to have headlamps since it is exploring shade areas.
NASA is interested especially in finding water because this resource could be particularly useful in human exploration. Rocket fuel, oxygen and obviously humans need it to survive may be converted into water.
But while NASA knows that there is water ice in the southern pole of the Moon, the researchers still don't know how much or if you can extract and use it.
"Water – like here on Earth – is the key to living on the Moon," said Daniel Andrews, VIPEER mission project manager in October 2019. „ The question now is whether the Moon can really contain the amount of resources we need to live off-world, after the confirmation of the lunar water ice ten years ago. It will help us answer all the questions we have regarding the location of the water and how much it can be used.
