Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com July 19 news, according to foreign media arstechnica reported that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is carrying out the research and development of a new lunar rover. The rover will be "the size of a golf cart" and will enter polar craters at the moon's poles in search of ice deposits that future astronauts can use to make rocket propellants and breathable air.

According to Tu Yuan Pexels, the icy lunar rover project is called "VIPER". Anthony Colaprete, the scientist in charge of the project, said the project team has been working on the idea for more than a decade. "it can go into dark places because it is the first rover with headlights," he said in a speech at the NASA Discovery Science Forum on Tuesday. LED headlights will project a blue hue on the charcoal landscape of the moon.

Earlier this year, NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston began building the chassis part of the lunar rover. In June this year, NASA officially approved the VIPER team's project, and the lunar rover will enter the full assembly and testing phase before its launch in November 2024.

According to the plan, the lunar rover will go deep into the dark crater to look for ice deposits, and its batteries can provide up to 50 hours of power between each crossing of the poles. Currently, the VIPER project includes three scientific instruments, two of which have been installed in Houston, and the ground team will install solar cell arrays, four 20-inch wheels and a 3-foot drill, which will be drilled into the lunar surface to measure the depth of ice deposits. In addition, a camera and a mast protruding about 8 feet from the ground will be installed on the lunar rover.

In 2009, NASA first detected water at the lunar poles on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 orbiter, which can be said to be "promising" in space exploration: hydrogen and oxygen can be used for power generation, rocket fuel, or converted into air to supply pressurized habitats on the moon.

According to previous reports from CTOnews.com, on June 28 this year, a scientist at NASA said that "they are seeking to develop lunar resources," initially including oxygen and water, and may eventually expand to iron and rare earths, and has taken measures to dig lunar soil by 2032.

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