Nasa's Artemis mission rover VIPER to land on Nobile crater of Moon's South Pole

In a recent anuncement, NASA revealed that Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will be deployed in Moon’s south pole in 2023, under ambitious Artemis mission. purpose of rover is to map unexplored regions of Moon and conclude if ice or any or potential resources exist in those areas, said ncy via its official website. upcoming Artemis mission will see humans return to Moon after over six decades. 

Exploring Moon’s Permanently Shadowed Region

VIPER has been assigned with a task to map and explore surface and sub-surface of  Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSR) for water and or resources. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA informed that VIPER will land on bile crater of Moon, as it shows most promise in this scientific pursuit. He revealed that upon touchdown rover will provide ground truth measurements for presence of water and or resources in undiscovered south pole.

sourn pole of Moon is one of coldest areas in our solar system, says NASA. Till w, it has been studied only through remote sensing instruments, including those on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. ncy on selected site informed that this impact crater was formed through a collision with ar smaller celestial body and has traces of ice as it is permanently shadowed. 

VIPER, to be blasted off on a X Falcon-Heavy rocket, rover will be utilised for a total of 100 days, said NASA. It will reportedly examine an area of 93 square kilometres in bile region and will collect samples from at least three drill locations. As per NASA, samples from a variety of depths and temperatures will help scientists to better predict presence of ice on Moon. Based on this, scientists will be able to produce a global resource map that would allow understanding Moon’s overall distribution of resources.

India’s quest to PSRs

Recently, ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 craft had picked up 'unambiguous detection of water ice' on Moon’s PSRs via Dual Frequency Syntic Aperture Radar (DFSAR). India had also ventured to Moon’s south pole under Chandrayaan-2 mission, where it had aimed to land a rover for examining region. However, lander that was carrying rover crashed after losing control 500m above lunar surface.

(IM: TWITTER/@NASA)