NASA is enlisting Houston-based Intuitive Machines to land an ice extractor on the Moon's south pole in 2022. A new collaboration that will is part of the Artemis program of the American agency.
Unless you've been living deep in a cave for several years, you know that NASA aims to rest astronauts on the Moon as early as 2024 as part of its Artemis program . Unlike the Apollo program, fifty years ago, the American agency intends this time to register permanently on the Moon .
Also, from 2028, astronauts will benefit from a mini-station in orbit, from which they will regularly travel to the lunar surface. Eventually, there is also talk of establishing a permanent base on our satellite .
At first, NASA and its partners will be able to transport cargo from Earth. Nevertheless, transport costs remain exorbitant. Ultimately, the various operating agencies will thus have to draw resources directly on site, and in particular ice.
With that in mind, NASA has just awarded a new contract worth $47 million to the company Intuitive Machines to design and build an ice extractor to operate at the south pole of the Moon. It is indeed there that future astronauts will normally settle.
This is the first-ever mission designed to harvest water ice from inside the Moon, according to NASA officials. Note that this collaboration is part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to develop private robotic missions to the Moon.
This ice extractor, named PRIME-1 , will be deposited on our satellite by the lander NOVA-C , also developed by Intuitive Machines.
"Laying the groundwork to bring humans back to the Moon is an incredible honor and an even greater challenge “said Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines. “At Intuitive Machines, we are hungry to pursue these bold missions that will redefine what a small business is capable of “.
PRIME-1 will use a drill to dig about one meter below the lunar surface . It will also propose a mass spectrometer responsible for measuring the amount of ice lost by sublimation (when a solid turns directly into vapor) during the extraction process.
Finally, if all goes as planned, a version of this same lunar drill and mass spectrometer from PRIME-1 will also be installed on NASA's next robotic lunar robot, called VIPER. This rover, whose launch is scheduled for 2023, will also have the task of searching for water ice at the lunar south pole.
