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The moon may contain water ice. NASA plans to send a new type of rover to the field for investigation.
Beijing time April 18 news, according to the National Broadcasting Corporation website (NBC) reports, NASA is committed to the development of a new type of lunar rover for the search and analysis of water and ice material in the lunar south pole area, and show how The method of producing liquid water on the moon in situ. The project, named “Resvironment and Environmental Science and Resourse of Oxygen and Lunar Surface Volatile†(RESOLVE), is scheduled to be launched in November 2017 and is expected to reach its target in one week.
However, the project's budget is very tight, only 250 million US dollars, which also includes the launch cost between the ground and the moon. Current project planners plan to use solar power for the rover and the equipment it carries. However, in the area where water ice and other volatile matter may be buried, light can be received only for several days at a time.
William Larson is a former project manager who recently retired from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He said: "The best use of nuclear power is to implement any project in the polar regions of the moon, but we lack the necessary financial support. If we use solar energy, we will save more money. This is exactly what we will do." But scientists like this We have a lot of extra work to do, and the schedule is already very tight.
According to the plan, when the lander arrives at the polar region of the moon, the lunar rover will have 2.5 days of light, during which time the lunar rover will seize the time to search for the hydrogen atom signal, and then when the shadow time starts for about 2 days, the lunar rover will start. It will go to sleep. Next, there will be a lighting period of approximately five days, during which time the rover will attempt to drill a hole about one meter deep and extract samples for mineral analysis from it. The equipment carried on the rover will heat the sample to extract liquid water from it. Finally, during the project, it will also verify how oxygen and hydrogen extracted from the lunar soil can be used to produce water on site.
Larson said: “The main task of this project is to assess the distribution of lunar water ice, but since we will be directly there this time, and we do not know if water can be found eventually, we must arrange for a backup plan. The technology to verify the extraction of oxygen from the lunar soil." He said: "This project is the most challenging extraterrestrial celestial rover in NASA's history. It is also the most difficult schedule. In addition, We must also complete it under extremely tight budget constraints."
The RESOLVE project is the next step in the LRO project that is still in operation and the LCROSS project that hit the moon in 2009. The latter hit a crater named Seybers near the south pole of the Moon in 2009. The official name of LCROSS project is "Lunar crater observation and perception satellite". LCROSS is the abbreviation of its English name.
A large amount of detrital material was sputtered from inside the crater at the time of the impact mission. The analysis of these substances indicates that the internal material of the pit contains approximately 5% of moisture. But as for the source of these waters, it is still a mystery. This time, the RESOLVE project will probably find the answer to this question. The equipment carried on the rover is specially designed to analyze hydrogen isotopes in any aqueous sample. Such analysis will at least reduce the options for these sources. At present, the main theories for this issue include the impact of comets and asteroids, and the internal water emanation of the Moon during geological history. The project will also provide some first-hand on-site information to help us understand the mineral composition below the surface of the lunar surface.
David Paige, of the moon science community at the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "The polar regions of the moon are extremely cold. We are interested in this region because it is very likely to contain abundant volatile substances. "He said:" I think the temperature of the moon is enough to maintain these volatiles. The question is whether they really exist there."
Larson briefly introduced the project to participants at a seminar last week. NASA plans to work closely with the Canadian Space Agency on this project. They plan to conduct a field simulation of the project in the Hawaiian Islands this summer. (morning)
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