A maglev or magnetoplane is a train on a magnetic suspension that is driven and controlled by magnetic forces. And despite the fact that the technology is still is not sufficiently developed on Earth the US space agency plans to launch this miracle railroad on the Moon in the next decade.
The project, which looks more like a science fiction story, was named «Flexible Levitation on a Track» (FLOAT) and received funding for further research. According to NASA, a similar pace of design and further development will allow for the launch of maglev and transportation of materials across the lunar surface as early as the 2030s.
«We want to build the first lunar rail system that will provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient transportation of payloads on the Moon», — wrote project manager Ethan Schaller, a robotic engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a NASA blog post. «A robust and durable robotic transportation system will be critical to the daily operations of a permanent lunar base in the 2030s».
According to NASA’s initial design, FLOAT will use «magnetic robots hovering over a three-layer film track on the lunar surface» — attached to carts moving at an approximate speed of 1.61 km/h. It is planned that they will transport 100 tons of material to and from the space agency’s future lunar base every day.
NASA plans to send astronauts to the Moon in 2026 as part of the Artemis III mission. Meanwhile, Artemis II, previously scheduled for November 2024, postponed to September 2025 — the 4-person mission will repeat the path «Orion», which will fly around the Moon in 2022 without a crew. However, it has recently been revealed that the spacecraft had problems with the heat shield, so, perhaps we should expect another postponement.
Source: livescience, NASA