NASA Selects Astrobotic To Fly Water-Hunting Rover to the Moon (nasa.gov) 16
NASA has awarded Astrobotic of Pittsburgh $199.5 million to deliver NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon's South Pole in late 2023. From a report: The water-seeking mobile VIPER robot will help pave the way for astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning in 2024 and will bring NASA a step closer to developing a sustainable, long-term presence on the Moon as part of the agency's Artemis program. "The VIPER rover and the commercial partnership that will deliver it to the Moon are a prime example of how the scientific community and U.S. industry are making NASA's lunar exploration vision a reality," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Commercial partners are changing the landscape of space exploration, and VIPER is going to be a big boost to our efforts to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 through the Artemis program."
VIPER's flight to the Moon is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which leverages the capabilities of industry partners to quickly deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon. As part of its award, Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon.
VIPER's flight to the Moon is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which leverages the capabilities of industry partners to quickly deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon. As part of its award, Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of VIPER, including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon.
Seriously? (Score:2)
NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER)
Does NASA have a team dedicated to creating convoluted backronyms for its missions?
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I worked with a guy for a few years who could come up with the most hilarious backronyms on the spot. He never even seemed to have to think about it. I doubt they need anyone dedicated to the job. They do employ a LOT of intelligent people, after all.
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"Sorry folks if 'next man' is a bit of a let down, I know there's a bit of a paunch, and some poor posture, along with running a 30 minute mile, but it's the best we could find in our lab."
Misread (Score:2)
Misread the title, I thought it said NASA was sending Astroboy to carry a rover to the moon.
Experiment (Score:3)
NASA has awarded Astrobotic of Pittsburgh $199.5 million to deliver NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the Moon's South Pole in late 2023.
NASA's appetite for risky experiments is higher now than it's been in 40 years. The trouble with Lunar landings is the difficulty of testing hardware and software. It's impossible to replicate the gravity, and impossible to replicate the vacuum while flying, so you have to hope that you can test in high gravity and an atmosphere, then change the software parameters for the actual landing. Landing on the Moon isn't as easy as it looks, as India found out the hard way [slashdot.org]. But NASA is willing to take a $199 million gamble on an unknown company to do the job right. This is not your daddy's NASA.
I wish Astrobotic luck. They're going to need it.
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NASA's appetite for risky experiments is higher now than it's been in 40 years. The trouble with Lunar landings is the difficulty of testing hardware and software. It's impossible to replicate the gravity, and impossible to replicate the vacuum while flying, so you have to hope that you can test in high gravity and an atmosphere, then change the software parameters for the actual landing. Landing on the Moon isn't as easy as it looks, as India found out the hard way.
What you describe was the difficulty in the 60s, but it's all pretty well understood now. The dynamics of it are easily modeled in engineering simulations with great accuracy. Neither India's nor Israel's recent nearly-successful moon landings ran into problems because the simulations were poor or the onboard software did the wrong thing (unlike Boeing, who has no excuse for Starliner). They had hardware failures due to a lack of hardware testing in general.
When you're stretching your budget to build one
Why not LEGO? (Score:2)
I was very disappointed (seriously) that LEGO chose not to compete for the contract. It could have been an inspirational project for schoolkids worldwide, and even if they bid below cost they could have made up the difference in increased sales of Mindstorm sets. My understanding is that there was actually an internal proposal to enter the competition in association with someone else, but management thought it was too far outside their core business.
They should have made sandworms (Score:2)
It would have been awesome.
Sorry (Score:1)
"We're whaleing on the moon, we carry a harpoon!"
Again, sorry.
Finally, a US rover to the moon! (Score:2)
For so many years US has been sending rovers to Mars, ok those are interesting but damn about time we consider this celestial body so close features can be seen with the naked eye. We could have done that years ago but nobody can talk about the moon without using Mars in the same sentence (eek, I'm guilty too!). Result was everyone thinking lunar exit strategy before even figuring out how to return to the moon, end result we get nothing (i.e. VSE). Anyway, I'm looking forward to this ever since LCROSS and t
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My dream for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge
https://spectrum.ieee.org/auto... [ieee.org]
to send the winners' system to explore the lunar lava tubes. (Obviously not the blimp and aerial drones.)
NASA is unfortunately held captive by the thundering herd of lawyers in Congress, they can propose missions to the Moon or Venus until they're blue in the face but the herd has decided on Mars so that's where they're allowed to go. Allowing lawyers to set the priorities for an engineering program is stupid.
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Water on the Moon is more interesting because it contains hydrogen. As you observe there is a lot of oxygen there. To send nitrogen to the Moon you would a) use a rocket, and probably send it in the form of ammonia (NH3) which is easily liquefied and stored, and is 82% nitrogen by mass. And it also supplies extra hydrogen.
Contracting is not new (Score:1)
There seems to be a lot of talk about "commercial partners". Most missions have been contracts with commercial entities since the early 1960's.