NASA’s first lunar rover will search for water on the moon in 2023
One of the precious resources for life in the world is water. Apart from covering 71 percent of the Earth, scientists confirmed that they detected ice water on the Moon. With that in mind, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to launch its first rover in 2023 to search for H2O and other resources on the lunar surface.
The prospective Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission will be conducted to discover how the said iced molecules are distributed and how it will be possible to retrieve them from the Moon’s surface. The data received from the rover will also help in preparation for Artemis astronauts.
According to Lori Glaze, NASA’s Planetary Science Division director, ‘This is yet another example of how robotic science missions and human exploration go hand in hand, and why both are necessary as we prepare to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon.’
As it will run on solar power in 2023, VIPER is built with headlights to help it navigate through the permanently shadowed areas of the Moon during its 100-day scheduled mission. It will go through sharp swings in light and dark in the South Pole region. The rover also has specialized wheels and a suspension system to handle various inclines and soil types.
During the golf cart-sized machine’s mission, it is also designed to have four instruments to extract the needed samples: the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains (TRIDENT) hammer drill, the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSolo) instrument, the Near Infrared Volatiles Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) and the Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS).
Program scientist for VIPER Sarah Noble described the rover as the most capable robot that NASA will send to the Moon. She added, ‘The rover will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon and prepare us to harvest resources 240,000 miles from Earth that could be used to safely send astronauts even farther into space, including Mars.’
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Source: we the pvblic
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