Tiny Moon Rover about the size of a shoe box will help humans explore the lunar surface

Miniaturised satellites such as CubeSats have revolutionised our understanding of orbital science. A mini Moon Rover is soon going to increase our kwledge of lunar surface by leaps and bounds. Find out how a tiny Moon Rover will help us with this.

Source: NASA

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NASA’s Mission

NASA’s lunar delivery mission is set to happen in 2021 is being orchestrated by Pennsylvania based company Astrobotic. NASA is set to launch a small rover to begin revolution. That Moon Rover is called Iris, and it is first of a new, small, and simple design called CubeRovers. Its orbital predecessors CubeSats are small and semi-standardised craft which are incredibly cheap to build and launch in orbit.

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Who is involved in Moon Rover Mission?

participants of this Moon Rover mission are NASA, Astrobotic, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. project is targeting for a 2021 launch date. It is going to be a part of NASA’s overall Artemis programme. Artemis is ncy's new programme, which aims to land humans on moon in 2024. However, Moon Rover Iris will most likely fly on a private delivery run, rar than an Artemis mission launched by NASA.

Source: NASA

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What will NASA’s Moon Rover do?

According to a NASA statement, Moon Rover Iris is about size of a shoebox and weighs less than 5 lbs, which is 2.3 kilograms. And it travels on four wheels. Assuming everything goes smoothly, rover will be driving about 160 feet or 49 meters.

This is approximately width of a football field. journey to moon itself will reveal to engineers more about what is best way to travel over  moon's dusty surface. drive will take rover far eugh away from its landing site, that it should be able to study how landing itself tends to alter surface of moon.

Source: NASA

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NASA's Mars Rover

Under NASA's Mars Exploration Program, a rover named Curiosity was landed on Mars's surface. Curiosity was designed to help NASA to assess wher Mars ever had an environment able eugh to support small life forms such as microbes. In simpler words, its mission was to determine planet's "habitability."

Mars Curiosity Rover was landed on surface of red planet on August 5, 2012.  rover aimed to analyze samples scooped from soil and drilled from rocks. Curiosity also recorded planet's climate and geology is essentially through its rocks and soil. It checked ir formation, structure, and chemical composition. 

Source: NASA