Students Prepare To Land First Robotic US Rover On The Moon Even Before NASA

The United States is finally preparing to send its first autonomous rover to the moon after 65 years of lunar research.

However, this project will not be led by NASA engineers, rather, it was conceived by a passionate group of college students.

Over the course of three years, academics, staff, and former students at Pennsylvania's Carnegie Mellon University created the Iris Rover.

It is being sent to the moon as a component of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which is the agency's first collaboration with the private space sector.

It was originally intended to launch in late 2021 or early 2022, but delays in NASA's moon mission program forced a launch date change to this spring, Space.com reported.

The mission represents America's first robotic moon rover (NASA's VIPER rover is scheduled to launch next year), as well as the first rover to be developed by university students. (NASA famously launched astronaut-driven "moon buggies" on the final three Apollo missions.)

The shoebox-sized chassis and bottle-cap-sized carbon fiber wheels of the 4.4-pound (2-kilogram) Iris are both made of advanced materials. Its 60-hour mission will focus mostly on taking pictures of the moon's surface for scientific research.

It will also test new localization techniques as it transmits data about its position back to Earth.

"Hundreds of students have poured thousands of hours into Iris," Raewyn Duvall, a research associate at Carnegie Mellon University and commander of the mission said in a statement (opens in new tab). "We've worked for years toward this mission, and to have a launch date on the calendar is an exciting step."

The Carnegie Mellon team also intends to send MoonArk, a miniature time capsule containing poems, music, images, and small things, along with Iris. The project is meant to convey a narrative "that is moving to people now, but also 1,000 years down the road," Dylan Vitone (opens in new tab), an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon and the MoonArk director, said in a statement (opens in new tab).

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is now featuring a second, identical ark.

The Vulcan Centaur rocket from United Launch Alliance will carry MoonArk and its little rover companion into orbit. The Peregrine lander from Pittsburgh-based space company Astrobotic will then transport them to the lunar surface.

The launch is planned to take place from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station no early than May 4, which the internet has appropriately dubbed International Star Wars Day