NASA engineers talked about the progress of work on the robotic lunar rover VIPER, the first of its kind, which will go to the satellite of our planet at the end of 2024. Information about the preparation of the mission was included on the official page Web site American space agency.
NASA says the golf cart-sized vehicle is about 50% complete. During its construction, experts had to overcome some difficulties.
“At the beginning of the assembly of the lunar rover, many problems arose that we had to deal with. We fixed design flaws and removed foreign objects that were preventing the connectors from working correctly. “It also turned out that some of the equipment supplied to us had unexpected performance characteristics.”
When the installation of the robotic lander on the extraterrestrial world is completed, it will be tested in conditions close to the Moon. The machine must withstand temperature changes between 107 °C and -240 °C.
VIPER is planned to go to the Moon in November 2024. The device is equipped with devices for searching for water and carbon dioxide. The lunar rover mission will last 100 days.
Formerly Japanese spacecraft SLIM passed The first photographs of the Moon’s surface from orbit to Earth.