Robot Grace, who will serve in the darkest depths of the Moon and will capture the images of the craters that have never been seen before the south pole, were introduced.
The Houston -based Intuitive Machines initiative is preparing to launch its second mission to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Moon load services (CLPS) attempt. The company’s Moon landing vehicle will be launched with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket during a four -day launch window that will start on February 26th. The landing tool athena targets the Mons Mouton plateau near the South Pole of the Moon. If Athena makes a successful landing on the moon surface, it will open its loads, including a micro-Nova robot called Grace, which will jump to a nearby crater and then jump back.
Grace is named after Grace Hopper, a leading mathematician and computer scientist who defends accessible programming. But Grace is a repulsive unmanned aerial vehicle designed to jump on the surface of the Moon. The Micro-Nova jumper will perform a total of five jumping, each of which is at a different altitude. Grace will gradually jump on the surface of the moon by using its pushers and will gradually jump higher and reach 100 meters in the third jump. He will then jump towards a cratere standing in the shade.
According to Space.com, Trent Martin, Senior Vice President of Intuitive Machines’ space systems, said that Grace is targeted by the crater H, which is approximately 20 meters deep from Athena’s landing area and is about 20 meters deep. Grace will look for water and other resources in the crater while there and take some photos with its built -in cameras. Robot will continue to communicate with Athena using the Moon Surface Communication System, which aims to create the first 4G/LTE network on the Moon.
This jumping robot was designed to spend about 45 minutes on the crater base before making it jumping back to the surface. Although the research of the robot seems to be easier to make it easier with a flying drone, it is not that easy to fly outside the world atmosphere. Discovering Mars with the Perseverance Discovery vehicle, Ingenuity made short -term flights on the surface of the Red Planet. However, the situation on the Moon is slightly different and even more difficult than Mars driving a vehicle flying due to a fine atmosphere.
Although Grace is the first example of its kind as a jumping research robot, it will not be the last jumping robot used on the Moon. Similarly, China plans to send a robot jumping to the Moon with 7 tasks to Chang, which is planned to be launched in 2026.
