It won't surprise most readers that when NASA builds a critical piece of equipment, like the Perseverance rover currently operating on Mars, that they build two. The rationale is simple: there's a better chance of getting finished with one of them meeting all requirements if you build two. Plus, you have a useful model all the way through the mission. If new software mods are needed, they can be tested on the ground here instead of 20 minutes each way by radio - or more, or less depending on the relative positions of Earth and Mars.
NASA officials today publicly revealed they're seriously considering sending the backup rover to the lunar south pole. Wait - did I mention it's nuclear powered and better suited to working through the two week long lunar night than the landers we've sent to the moon?
The car-sized rover nicknamed “Promise,” which serves as a testbed for Perseverance and was not otherwise planned for a launch, would land equipped with a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) to power it across difficult terrain and through the lunar night. NASA’s other rovers primarily operate on solar power.
“We are thinking very hard right now about sending Promise to the Moon,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Tuesday during a monthly update on the agency’s plans to build a Moon base.
Sounds like win-win to me. I've got to believe the Promise rover has been paid for already, and while it's true that one of the justifications for building the backup rover is that if Percy (on Mars) had issues with something it was supposed to do, they could test the software on Promise, it's also true that with the years of learning just how Percy works, they most likely don't use it for that anymore. Or they don't use it much.
The twin of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, Promise, arrives at JPL's Mars Yard garage on October 29, 2021. Credit: NASA
The main drawback to using Promise is that it weighs a ton, and I'm sure by the time it's ready for launch that weight will go up. Eric Berger at Ars suggests it might require a heavy-lift vehicle more like New Glenn or Falcon Heavy. A check of the Falcon 9 specifications document I got long ago says the Falcon 9 can put 18,300 lb.s into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, and that sounds pretty capable of putting 2000 lb.s to Translunar Injection.
Although the Mars rovers were designed to operate on the surface of Mars, the JPL engineers said Promise could be modified to work on the Moon. NASA will also need to make some adjustments to the scientific instruments aboard the vehicle, but Isaacman said this represents a creative way to advance the agency’s interests in understanding the environment where it wants to establish a long-term human presence.
“We’ve got the hardware, and this is exactly what we should be trying to do to put wins on the board, getting a capability like Promise to the surface of the Moon,” he said.
It's an interesting idea and it raises the question of the landers that are already being planned for the moon, like Blue Origin's Blue Moon and SpaceX's HLS. Those are fine for sending astronauts to the moon, but what if we sent rovers like this instead of landers that stay in one place like those?
It's worth emphasizing that this is under consideration, not actually committed to yet. Today's announcement reinforces that Isaacman and his team are scouring NASA for hardware and other tools to advance the agency’s mandate to return to the Moon and to build a surface base.
I should update that the SWIFT rescue launch liftoff is scheduled for 5:43 a.m. EDT (0943 GMT) on Wednesday, July 1 - tomorrow morning to me as I write. Pegasus will be released by Stargazer once the aircraft reaches about 39,000 feet (12,000 meters), traveling at Mach 0.82. Five seconds later, the rocket will ignite its engine and ascend to orbit. I've found no way to watch that as it happens.
Fins like a late 1950s sedan ... a natural for the job!
ReplyDeleteThat seems silly since, you know, we already have a few cars on the moon. 😁
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