A team of students is about to pass NASA in one of the firsts on the Moon and send a rover to the Moon before NASA does. The team of Carnegie Mellon University students aim to launch the Iris rover and an additional sculpture project called MoonArk on May 4.
Raewyn Duvall, student and head of the Iris mission, said in a press release, “Hundreds of students have spent thousands of hours on Iris. We’ve worked for this mission for years, and it’s an exciting step to have a launch date on the calendar,” he added. “Iris will expand lunar and space exploration by proving that a small, lightweight rover made by students can be successful on the Moon.”
In preparation for our upcoming launch of @cmu_iris, we have begun conducting multi-day 24 hour full mission simulations in the @CarnegieMellon Mission Control Room. @astrobotic @ulalaunch pic.twitter.com/fbaYFa4QMK
— Iris Lunar Rover (by Carnegie Mellon University) (@cmu_iris) January 9, 2023
Once the Iris rover arrives on the Moon, it will spend its 60-hour mission exploring the surface and sending photos back to Earth. The vehicle will join the reconnaissance vehicles sent by China as the first uncrewed American reconnaissance vehicle on the Moon. It will also be the first lunar rover developed by students and the smallest and lightest lunar rover to date.
MoonArk, a project that took 10 years to build, will be left on the Moon as a time capsule. This light sculpture contains an array of paintings, music, nano objects, poetry and other artifacts from Earth. It is hoped that this statue will be lost and rediscovered by humanity in the distant future.
The two projects will reach their destination on a United Launch Alliance rocket, launching on May 4, before landing on the Moon with the Peregrine lunar lander.
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