6 days ago
Europe prepares to land rover on the Moon for first time
The first European Moon rover is due to land on the lunar surface on Thursday.
Named Tenacious, the rover is less than 2ft long and can carry a payload of just over one pound.
Built by the European arm of Japanese lunar exploration company Ispace, it will be controlled by ground staff in Luxembourg, who will be able to drive it at up to four inches per second in near real time, using a video camera mounted on its front panel.
Once on the Moon, it will deliver an art project called Moonhouse, a 3in-high model of a typical red Swedish cottage, developed by Mikael Genberg, a Swedish artist.
The team hopes to place the house in a location where it can be photographed with the Earth in the background.
The rover is also carrying a shovel to collect lunar regolith – moon dust – which will be sold to Nasa for $5,000 (£3,685) under an agreement that will make history as the first off-planet sale of resources.
It is the second attempt to land on the Moon by Ispace, after the company's first craft crash-landed on the lunar surface in 2020.
An investigation later found that a software glitch had led the spacecraft to believe it was on the surface when it was still several miles from landing.
Takeshi Hakamada, the founder of Ispace, said: 'Just over two years ago, Ispace became the first private company in the world to attempt a lunar landing.
'While the mission achieved significant results, we lost communication with the lander just before touchdown.
'Since that time, we have drawn on the experience, using it as motivation to move forward with resolve. We are now at the dawn of our next attempt to make history.'
The rover is being carried in a lander spacecraft called Resilience which launched in January on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and entered lunar orbit on May 6.
It is due to land on the Mare Frigoris region of the northern hemisphere of the near side of the Moon at 19:17 BST.
The team is hoping that the area will be flat enough to allow the rover to trundle around, although its sturdy wheels should help it navigate unexpectedly rough terrain.
Sophia Casanova, a senior lunar scientist at Ispace, said: 'The mission will be going to a really exciting region on the Moon. We are hoping to encounter a range of really interesting geologic features, and in particular with our Tenacious rover we will be exploring the lunar regolith, which is the soil-like material that covers the lunar surface.
'Understanding the characteristics of this material will help us not only understand the geology of the Moon but also help us understand the design of our future rovers.'
She added: 'The Tenacious rover may encounter an array of features that may pose a hazard. Things like steep slopes, highly fluffy or compacted material, or small craters and boulders. However, these features represent really important characteristics for us to evaluate and our rover was designed with these operational conditions in mind.'
The lander is also carrying several payloads including a water electrolyser for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, as well as experiments looking at food production and space radiation.
Kathryn Hadler, the director of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre, said: 'There are many resources of interest on the Moon, we can use the oxygen and metals present on the dust that coats the surface of the Moon, and we are also interested in the water ice that is present in the permanently shadowed reasons.
'This is important because we can use these resources to support human life, we can use it for rocket propellant, and this will allow us to support a future of sustainable space exploration.
'We need to develop the technologies to allow us to use these resources in space. It will allow us to understand how the regolith behaves when it is scooped and handled. And this is critical to develop technology for future space missions.'
Ispace has previously said that its goal is to kick off the lunar economy, and it has several more missions planned, including working on two more landers.
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