Місячний апарат Grace / Intuitive Machines / NASA
The new jumping robot Grace, named after the legendary Grace Hopper, will look into the darkest corners of the Moon. The drone robot will be sent to the South Pole of the Earth’s satellite as part of a NASA mission to explore a permanently shadowed crater.
The startup Intuitive Machines, together with NASA, has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle that will be the first to jump on the Moon. Grace will spend about 45 minutes at the bottom of the crater to search for water and other resources.
«The idea is that if you have a very deep crater and you want to go down into it, why not do it with something like a drone?» — says Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines.
Grace will be brought to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. On February 26, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be loaded with an Athena spacecraft, which, if it lands on the lunar surface, will unpack the cargo, including Grace’s Micro-Nova robot. The «Jumper» is targeting Mons Mouton — a lunar plateau near the lunar South Pole. Upon arrival, it will perform a total of five jumps, each with a different height. Grace will gradually ascend to 100 meters, then jump down and jump back up in less than an hour.
The robot will transmit data to Athena via a lunar surface communication system created by Nokia. Grace will be the first jumping robot to be sent to the Moon. Previously, a helicopter Ingenuity has been exploring the surface for three years of Mars with Perseverance, but with short-term flights. China is planning the next «jump» to the Moon with its Chang’e 7 mission in about 2026. Last year, a Chinese spacecraft successfully delivered to Earth the first ever soil samples and rocks on the back of the Moon.
«Jumper» was named after the highest ranking officer in the US Navy, Grace Hopper — legendary programmer and innovator which gave the world the first compiler and the COBOL language. In 2024, the non-profit organization tried to recreate a recording of her 1982 lecture at the headquarters of the US National Security Agency, but failed to do so.
Intuitive Machines has already carried out missions on the Moon, including the launch of its first lunar lander called Odysseus in February 2024. Its landing was not smooth: during the landing, the module got caught, flipped over, and eventually «rested» on a rock. At the time, the team reported problems with the switch who was supposed to activate the lasers for a safe landing.
Source: Gizmodo