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- NASA’s VIPER rover mission will search for traces of water at the Moon’s South Pole.
- Due to the light angle and dark terrain, NASA will equip the rover with headlights.
- This is the first time a NASA rover has been built with headlights.
NASA returns to the Moon, with humans, no less! – very very soon. No one knows for sure whether the space agency will meet its 2024 “deadline” to send humans to the lunar surface, but regardless of when these human and robotic missions take place, they will take place. NASA’s newest lunar rover, VIPER, has a very specific mission ahead of it as it is being sent to the South Pole of the Moon in search of water.
With a seemingly simple objective, you wouldn’t imagine that the rover would need to be significantly different from other rovers that the space agency has sent into space before, but you would be very wrong. The rover is obviously equipped with the special hardware you will need to sample and test the materials you find, but it will also be adorned with something no NASA rover has ever owned before: headlights.
It’s almost unbelievable to think that of all the high-tech hardware NASA has shipped to places like Mars, it has never bothered to outfit one of its rovers with headlights. Yet here we are, and VIPER will be the first to feature sporting lights that will allow the rover to see in the dark the same way the vehicle does on its driveway.
NASA has a very good reason to need headlights on VIPER, as it explains:
At the extremes of light and dark found on the Moon, the shaded and illuminated areas have such high contrast that any contours in the landscape are effectively invisible in the dark. To navigate this world, VIPER rover drivers will rely on a rover-mounted system of lights and cameras to stay clear of rocks, descend steep slopes into craters, and avoid other potentially fatal hazards.
Making sure the rover knows where it is going and doesn’t fall into any craters is a good idea, clearly, but before NASA is confident that robots with glowing eyes will work as intended, they had to test them. In a simulated lunar landscape at a NASA research facility in California, NASA scientists are working to refine the design of the headlights and maximize their potential to illuminate the rover’s path.
“We face challenges similar to those of any automotive designer,” NASA’s Uland Wong said in a statement. “Whether it’s in a mobile vehicle or the next sedan model, poor lighting design means the driver can’t see the details of the landscape. We have to pay more attention to these challenges on the Moon because once VIPER gets there, there is no turning back. “
VIPER does not have a firm launch date, which is the case for many of NASA’s upcoming high-profile lunar missions. However, as long as the rover soars through the skies and lands at the South Pole of the Moon, it may be ready to light its way.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in virtual reality, wearable devices, smartphones, and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as a technology editor at The Daily Dot and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and many other print and web media. His love of reporting is second only to his addiction to games.
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