Few people remember this, but the plans for the Apollo missions that NASA carried out between the late 1960s and early 1970s did not stop at reaching the surface of the Moon, in fact they went much further, well they desired to establish a lunar colony. However, once the race to the moon was won over the Soviet Union, many believed that the space race was already over and therefore there was no point in maintaining the huge public investment that had been made up to that point. It is hard to imagine where space exploration would be today if it had continued at that time.

Be that as it may, and although those who read me regularly know that I have been quite critical of Donald Trump’s role during his presidency, it is undeniable that space exploration underwent an important rebirth at the hands of his administration. A rebirth that we can identify especially with the Artemisa project, whose first major milestone will be the return of human beings to the Moon, half a century after we last set foot on it.

The plans in this regard, in which cooperation between public agencies and private companies play a key role, are quite ambitious, as they again think in the long term, the possibility of establishing a colony in our natural satellitewhich, among other things, will serve to carry out multiple tests for the first manned missions to Mars, which are currently planned for some time in the coming decade.

A key element to being able to establish a colony on the moon or any other place outside our planet is water, for obvious reasons. Therefore, before serious consideration is given to establishing a lunar colony, whether temporary or permanent, as with any other type of installation, it is essential to have a guaranteed local supply of the liquid element. And that’s where VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) comes into play, a rover that will attempt to reach water sources identified at the Moon’s south pole to confirm their existence and nature.

Not an easy mission, far from it. It forms the orography of the region in which the greatest occurrence of water is suspected cratersand to that we must add regolith layer (which can become sharp, which could cause damage to the vehicle and its components) that accumulate on the lunar surface. These two peculiarities require a very complex design, both in terms of wheels and the rover’s suspension system.

After overcoming complications related to the lunar transit, VIPER will still have to deal with another important challenge. Although the lunar poles are suspected to contain more water than previously thought, it is frozen in various craters that the rover will have to explore. Therefore, you will first need to analyze the surface to find these water reserves, and once detected, you will need to remove the regolith and drill to confirm that there is indeed solid water below the surface.

For this purpose VIPER It will be supported by a hammer drill specially designed for this purpose. called the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains (TRIDENT), capable of drilling up to 3.2 feet (about one meter), in conjunction with three other spectrometry instruments that can analyze the composition of samples by observing the light they emit, the so-called mass spectrometer for the Lunar Operations Observation (MSolo), the Near Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) and the Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS).

«VIPER will be the most capable robot NASA has ever sent to the lunar surface, and will allow us to explore parts of the moon we’ve never seen.said NASA VIPER program scientist Sarah Noble. «The rover will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon and prepare us to harvest resources 240,000 miles from Earth that could be used to safely send astronauts even further into space, including Mars.«.

Images: NASA