In May, Carnegie Mellon University students will launch the country's first
lunar rover, beating NASA to the moon by roughly a year.
The United States is finally preparing to send its first autonomous rover
to the moon after 65 years of lunar research. However, this project will not
be led by NASA engineers; rather, it was conceived by a passionate group of
college students.
Over the course of three years, academics, staff, and former students at
Pennsylvania's Carnegie Mellon University created the Iris rover. It is
being sent to the moon as a component of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload
Services (CLPS) program, which is the agency's first collaboration with the
private space sector. It was originally intended to launch in late 2021 or
early 2022, but delays in NASA's moon mission program forced a launch date
change to this spring.
As NASA's Viper rover is set to launch next year, this endeavor marks both
the first lunar rover for America and the first rover to be created by
college students. The 4.4 pound (2 kilogram) rover features a shoebox-sized
chassis and bottle-cap-sized carbon fiber wheels. Its 60-hour mission will
focus mostly on taking pictures of the moon's surface for scientific
research. As it broadcasts information about its position back to Earth, it
will try novel localisation strategies.
The Carnegie Mellon team intends to send Iris along with the MoonArk, a
little time capsule containing poetry, music, images, and other artifacts.
According to MoonArk director Dylan Vitone, an associate professor at
Carnegie Mellon, the project aims to tell a story "that is moving to people
now, but also 1,000 years down the road." The Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum presently has a second, similar ark on
exhibit.
The Vulcan centaur rocket operated by United Launch Alliance will carry
MoonArk and its little rover partner into space. Pittsburgh-based
Astrobiotic's Peregrine lander will then transport them to the lunar
surface. Launch is now planned on May 4 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space
Force Station, which the internet has dubbed International Star Wars
Day.
Iris' commander, Raewyn Duvall, a research associate at Carnegie Mellon
University, stated in a statement: "Hundreds of students have poured
thousands of hours into Iris." We've been working on this
mission for years, so having a launch date set in stone is a thrilling
development.
