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The US space agency hopes the robot will confirm the assumption that the crater has accumulated frozen water shallow below the surface that could be used to produce fuel in preparation for flights to Mars or beyond.
“The Nobil crater is an impact crater near the South Pole, formed by a collision with another smaller celestial body,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetology division, told reporters.
This area is one of the coldest in the solar system. So far, it has only been studied from orbiting devices like NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite.
NASA’s moonlight will search for water.
“The moonlight will get closer to the floor of the Moon” and will be able to drill wells up to a meter deep, said L. Glazer.
The device was called the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER).
It is the same size as a golf course car: the moon will be 1.5 m long, 1.5 m wide and 2.5 m high and will weigh 430 kilograms.
Unlike the Mars exploration device, VIPER can be controlled from Earth in near real time, since the distance between our planet and the Moon is much less, only around 300,000. kilometres. A radio signal sent from Earth reaches the Moon in about 1.3 seconds.
NASA’s moonlight will search for water.
Moonrise can also travel faster than Martians, up to 800m per hour.
Solar cells will supply power to the moon; it will be stored in a battery with a sufficient power reserve of 50 hours. The device will adapt to withstand extreme temperature fluctuations and can be moved sideways to keep the solar cells facing the light.
First, the VIPER research team wants to find out how ice clumps have formed on the Moon and what conditions have allowed them to survive for billions of years. Other peculiarities of modern water dynamics on the Moon are also expected to be investigated.
The mission will be part of NASA’s Artemis program, a plan to resume manned flights to the moon.
American astronauts are scheduled to return to the Moon in 2024, but that flight is likely to take place much later due to delays in various elements of the Artemis program.
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