The US Space Agency (NASA) announced that it has chosen its area Moon, where in 2023 it will send VIPER’s first robotic lunar rover in search of water in the form of ice. It is about for a point near the edge of the large 93-square-kilometer Nobile Crater at the south pole of the Earth’s satellite, much of which remains almost permanently shaded by the Sun. something that increases the chance of discovering icy water.
Water is considered vital to the future missions of the US space program Artemis – the successor to the historic Apollo program – both to supply a future astronaut base with drinking water and as a raw material for supplying oxygen for rocket fuel. NASA has awarded a nearly $ 200 million contract to Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic to build the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) rover, which – if all goes according to plan – is expected to reach the moon. towards the end of 2023 with the griffin Griffin, on a Falcon Heavy rocket of the company Space X.
It will be the first unmanned US robotic rover mission to the Moon (unlike Mars where NASA has sent several) and is expected to last at least 100 Earth days. The 450-kilogram solar-powered rover, the size of a golf cart, will use drills, three spectrometers and other chemical detection equipment to locate ice-water reserves up to a meter below the lunar surface.
NASA plans to return to the Moon within this decade (its last lunar eclipse was in 1972), this time paving the way for a long-term presence there. Scientists estimate that there are billions of tons of lunar ice on the moon in polar craters that never see sunlight and have temperatures as low as minus 223 degrees Celsius. VIPER will give a first hand assessment of how deep this “locked” water is, how much it is and how easy it is to use in the future.
“We’ve never seen anything like what we’re going to see when we get to the Moon’s South Pole,” said Anthony Colaprete, chief scientist on the Viper mission to NASA’s Ames Research Center. The lunar poles are dramatic, especially the South, where ancient impact craters have elevated entire mountains larger than Mount Everest. It’s going to be something really different from our world. “
Among the difficulties the rover will face will be complete darkness, so it will be NASA’s first rover equipped with powerful headlights to see the route.
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