NASA’s VIPER rover will search the moon for water in 2024

NASA sends a rover to the moon to look for water. It is called VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) and will be launched in November 2024. The full size model was located on the SiliCon conference area. It’s about the size of a golf cart, but the moon drill at the top is eight feet tall. Although there are rovers on Mars, this will be the first on the moon. The water it finds will support future manned missions there. And can also make rocket fuel and other resources needed to continue our exploration to Mars and even beyond. nerdist spoke to some team members at SiliCon about this cool prospecting robot.

“We started three years ago and want to start in a few years. That’s really fast for a NASA mission,” says Terry Fong, director of the Intelligent Robotics Group and one of the people who will drive the rover.

VIPER will land at Nobile Crater (pronounced no-be-lay) near the moon’s south pole. Because the water is frozen ice, the rover moves in areas that are permanently in shadow. For this reason, it will be the first rover with headlights. But it runs on solar power. VIPER’s solar panels are located to the side of the rover rather than at the top as the sun is low on the horizon when it rises at all.

Another NASA mission is heading for the south pole of the moon soon. Could the Artemis astronauts meet up with VIPER there? “It could very well be possible,” says Ryan Vaughan, the rover’s lead systems engineer. “Of the 13 landing regions announced by Artemis, one of them is the VIPER Science Zone.” By the time the astronauts land on the moon, VIPER will likely have lost power. The team aims to cover 20 kilometers in a 100-day mission before the rover loses power.

VIPER flies to the moon thanks to a SpaceX rocket and an Astrobotic lander. “One cool thing about this is that we involve the industry so we can move faster,” confirms Mercedes Herreras Martinez, risk management officer at VIPER.

Earth has six times the gravity of the moon. Testing a rover designed for use there will require some adjustments when driven on Earth. The video above shows VIPER’s 4WD and how it handles rocky terrain and even quicksand. The communication delay is relatively short, only six to 15 seconds between the earth and the moon. This allows VIPER drivers to quickly address any problems that arise.

The short communications delay also means the rover can return if it finds something really interesting. The rover’s scientific instruments process information quickly. One machine is called the NIRVSS (pronounced “nervous,” which stands for Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System). It not only detects water, but also other resources on or just below the lunar surface.

I asked the VIPER team if they see themselves or the rover in popular culture. Amanda Cook, an astrophysicist working on the mission, says: “It’s always on my mind moon because there everything revolves around the iron harvest. It’s kind of interesting to think about. If there was a mining operation on the moon, there will be two or three people operating some machines. It’s going to be a bit isolating.”

“There’s another For all mankindsays Herreras Martinez. “This could be the next step after VIPER!” Fong adds, “If you look at it moon or For all mankind, don’t see the reliance on robots for things like prospecting. That’s what we’re concentrating on right now. We still have a long way to go to catch up with science fiction. I don’t think we would all really catch up because writers today are thinking about things that are so far in the future. You will always be ahead of the scientific facts.”

We are excited about the journeys of VIPER and Artemis to the moon. While we wait, there are always the amazing images from the James Webb Space Telescope to inspire and excite us about space exploration.

Melissa is the science and technology writer for Nerdist. She also moderates “Science of” panels at congresses and is co-host Star Warsologies, a podcast about science and Star Wars. keep following her Twitter @melissatruth.