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- NASA’s VIPER rover mission will search for traces of water at the Moon’s South Pole.
- Due to the angle of light and the dark terrain, NASA will equip the rover with beacons.
- This is the first time a NASA rover has been built with lighthouses.
NASA is returning to the moon – with humans, no less! – very, very soon. No one knows if the space agency will make its “deadline” of 2024 by sending humans to the lunar surface, but regardless of when these human and robotic missions take place, they will take place. NASA’s new lunar rover, VIPER, has a very specific mission ahead of it, as it is sent to the Moon’s South Pole in search of water.
With a seemingly simple goal, you wouldn’t imagine the rover needs to be significantly different from the other rovers the space agency has sent into space previously, but you’d be very wrong. The rover is obviously outfitted with the special hardware it will need to sample and test the materials it comes across, but it will also be decorated with something no NASA rover has ever had before: headlights.
It’s almost unbelievable to think that of all the high-tech hardware NASA has sent to places like Mars, it has never bothered to equip one of its rovers with lighthouses. Yet, here we are, and VIPER will be the first to showcase the lights that will allow the rover to see in the dark in much the same way as the vehicle in your driveway.
NASA has a very good reason for needing the headlights on VIPER, as they explain:
In the extremes of light and dark found on the Moon, the shaded and illuminated areas are in such high contrast that any contours of the landscape are effectively invisible in the dark. To navigate this world, VIPER rover drivers will rely on a system of lights and cameras mounted on the rover to avoid boulders, descend steep slopes in craters and avoid other potentially fatal dangers to the mission.
Ensuring the rover knows where it’s headed and doesn’t crash into the craters if that’s a good idea, of course, but before NASA is sure the robots’ beaming eyes will work as intended, they’ve had to test them. On a simulated lunar landscape at a NASA research facility in California, NASA scientists are working to refine the design of the beacons and maximize their potential to light the way for the rover.
“We face challenges similar to those of any car designer,” Uland Wong from NASA said in a statement. “Whether it’s a rover or the next sedan model, a bad lighting design means a driver can’t see the details in the landscape. We have to pay particular attention to these challenges on the Moon because once VIPER arrives, there is no return. “
VIPER does not have a precise launch date, as is the case with many of NASA’s upcoming high-profile moon missions. However, whenever the rover takes off and lands at the Moon’s South Pole, you can be ready to light its path.
Mike Wehner has been reporting on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in VR, wearables, smartphones, and the technology of the future. Most recently, Mike worked as a Tech Editor at The Daily Dot and appeared on USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and print media. His love of reportage is second only to his addiction to games.
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