In early May, Carnegie Mellon University students will launch a tiny, lightweight rover called Iris. This
In total, about 300 students worked on Iris,which will go to the Moon aboard the Peregrine lander. The United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket will send the payload into space. Iris will be the first American student-designed rover and the smallest and lightest rover.
“We have been working on this mission for years, and the datelaunches on the calendar is an exciting step. Iris will open up lunar and space exploration by proving that a tiny, lightweight rover built by students can succeed on the Moon,” explains Ravin Duval, Iris mission commander.
The rocket will be launched from the Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The flight to the Moon will take about a month. Once deployed, Iris will conduct a 60-hour mission.
Although the US Aerospace Agencysent five robot rovers to Mars, NASA for a long time refused to send them to the Moon. However, the agency has begun work on its VIPER rover, which will land on Earth's natural satellite on November 10, 2024.
Iris will be controlled by Center employeesCarnegie Mellon Mission Control on the Pittsburgh campus. Students from the mission team ran simulations for weeks; They will work in shifts to monitor and control the robot in different situations.
In addition to sending a rover to the Moon before NASA,Carnegie Mellon University will also be the first to send an artifact there from Earth. As part of the MoonArk project, students recorded hundreds of images, poems, music, nano-objects, diagrams and more.
Read more:
Biologists discover how cancer cells elude the immune system
The key theory of quantum physics has finally been proven. Main
Named products that protect the brain from dementia, and when to use them