Searching the dark side of the moon: Canadian rover to aid in hunt for water | 24CA News

The Canadian lunar rover may quickly assist reveal the moon’s darkish facet.

The nation’s first moon rover is about to place the Canadian Space Agency on the forefront of house exploration, serving to within the international seek for frozen water on the celestial physique.

NASA says the moon takes about 27 days to finish a full rotation on its axis because it orbits earth, leaving the identical facet seen from the bottom always. As a end result, the far facet stays little understood and unexplored.

“That has always piqued everybody’s imagination: What is on the other side of the moon?” mentioned Gordon Osinski, principal investigator for the Canadian Lunar Rover Mission.

Osinski’s Canadian crew, together with worldwide companions, is making ready to ship a 30-kilogram rover to the south polar area of the moon in quest of preserved frozen water, presumably just a few meters under the floor and combined into the soil.

Future of human missions

The discovery of ice may very well be a stepping-stone to additional explorations of the photo voltaic system, together with missions staffed by people, mentioned Chris Herd, a scientific investigator on the mission and University of Alberta planetary geologist.

Herd, who has beforehand labored on the Mars rover mission, mentioned frozen water “can be extracted and used as a resource for the astronauts to survive.” He mentioned the ice may be cut up into hydrogen and oxygen for gas, lowering the price of bringing these provides from Earth.

“It reduces the costs of sending humans to the moon [and] that’s the ultimate goal,” he mentioned.

Osinski mentioned there’s been renewed curiosity in moon exploration during the last 5 years, with extra emphasis on sending astronauts again there.

The robotic rover would play an integral half in realizing that dream, he added.

Christian Sallaberger, CEO of Canadensys Aerospace Corporation, mentioned business enlargement of the house trade can be taking part in an enormous position in reviving curiosity in revisiting the moon.

In November, Ottawa picked Canadensys to construct the lunar rover and assist with the scientific devices meant to be shipped to the moon.

“The costs of the missions have come down, relatively speaking, to what they were in the past,” Sallaberger mentioned. “In the ’60s, everything was government funded.”

The Ontario house firm has been working in partnership with six Canadian universities and several other worldwide companions from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Canadensys can be constructing a strong rover that might deal with excessive temperature swings — shifting from -200 C at evening to greater than 100 C through the day. It would additionally have the ability to sort out excessive radiation and jagged lunar surfaces whereas persevering with to ship knowledge all through the months it spends on the moon.

Working on solar energy, the rover would fall asleep each 14 days after which work 24 hours a day, seven days per week, till the subsequent cycle.

Scientists won’t solely be on the lookout for strong water, however can be investigating the composition of the moon’s rocky floor, characterizing the radiation surroundings and taking high-resolution photographs, Sallaberger mentioned.

“[It’s] the preparation for future human missions that this rover would be doing,” he mentioned.

‘Incredibly thrilling’

While Canada will not be the primary nation to make a touchdown on the far facet of the moon, it may very well be the primary to discover the south pole of Earth’s pure satellite tv for pc, believed to carry ice water within the completely shadowed craters.

China turned the primary nation to ship its rover, Yutu-2, to the far facet of the moon in 2019.

Osinski mentioned there may very well be different nations launching their rovers to the far facet of the moon earlier than Canada’s goes.

But he mentioned it is nonetheless “incredibly exciting.”

“I almost have to keep pinching myself at times,” he mentioned. “It’s everything I’ve been working towards for the last couple of decades.”

Now, he hopes to see the launch of the rover in three years, mounted on high of a rocket — most probably to take off from NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“Then, a few weeks later, it would land on the surface of the moon. I can’t think of anything more exciting.”

This story was produced with the monetary help of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship, which isn’t concerned within the editorial course of.