In late 2022, NASA will send an ice-mining experiment attached to a robotic
lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater – a
location engineers and scientists have assessed for months. NASA and
Intuitive Machines, an agency partner for commercial Moon deliveries,
announced the location selection Nov. 3.
NASA data from spacecraft orbiting the Moon indicate this location, referred
to as the “Shackleton connecting ridge,” could have ice below the surface.
The area receives sufficient sunlight to power a lander for roughly a 10-day
mission, while also providing a clear line of sight to Earth for constant
communications. It also is close to a small crater, which is ideal for a
robotic excursion.
These conditions offer the best chance of success for the three technology
demonstrations aboard. This includes the NASA-funded Polar Resources
Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) – which consists of a drill paired with a
mass spectrometer – a 4G/LTE communications network developed by Nokia of
America Corporation, and Micro-Nova, a deployable hopper robot developed by
Intuitive Machines.
“PRIME-1 is permanently attached to Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, and
finding a landing location where we might discover ice within three feet of
the surface was challenging,” said Dr. Jackie Quinn, PRIME-1 project manager
at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “While there is plenty of
sunlight to power the payloads, the surface gets too warm to sustain ice
within reach of the PRIME-1 drill. We needed to find a ‘goldilocks’ site
that gets just enough sunlight to meet mission requirements while also being
a safe place to land with good Earth communications.”
To select this final landing location, experts from NASA, Arizona State
University, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Nokia, and Intuitive Machines
created “ice-mining” maps of the lunar surface using lunar remote sensing
data.
After landing, the PRIME-1 drill, known as The Regolith Ice Drill for
Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT), will attempt to drill up to three feet
deep, extract lunar soil – called regolith – and deposit it on the surface
for water analysis. PRIME-1’s other instrument, the Mass Spectrometer
observing lunar operations (MSolo), will measure volatile gases that readily
escape from the material excavated by TRIDENT.
PRIME-1 will be the first demonstration of finding and extracting resources
on the Moon. Advancing these types of technologies are critical to
establishing a robust, long-term presence in deep space, including at the
Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis missions. Simply operating and drilling
into the tough lunar surface will provide valuable insight to engineers for
future lunar missions, such as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration
Rover, or VIPER, mission, which is slated to land at the lunar South Pole in
late 2023.
While PRIME-1 will investigate the resources below the lunar surface, Nokia
will set out to test its space-hardened 4G/LTE network. A small rover
developed by Lunar Outpost will venture more than a mile away from the
Nova-C lander and test Nokia’s wireless network at various distances. The
rover will communicate to a base station located on Nova-C, and the lander
will communicate data back to Earth. This demonstration could pave the way
for a commercial 4G/LTE system for mission-critical communications on the
lunar surface. This includes communications and even high-definition video
streaming from astronauts to base stations, vehicles to base stations, and
more.
Nearby, Intuitive Machines’ Micro-Nova will aim to deploy to the surface and
hop into a nearby crater to acquire pictures and science data before hopping
out. It will then send the data back to Nova-C. Micro-Nova can carry a
two-pound payload more than 1.5 miles to access lunar craters and enable
high-resolution surveying of the lunar surface. This demonstration could
help pave the way for additional commercial lunar exploration services. In
the future, scientists may have the opportunity to outfit a hopper with
their own small science instruments, such as cameras, seismometers, lunar
ranging systems, and more.
“These early technology demonstrations employ innovative partnerships to
provide valuable information about operating on and exploring the lunar
surface,” said Niki Werkheiser, director of technology maturation for NASA’s
Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in
Washington. “The data will inform the designs for future in-situ resource
utilization, mobility, communication, power, and dust mitigation
capabilities.”
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