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MUMBAI: Europe’s first lunar rover “Tenacious” will fly to the Moon by the Space X Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida towards the end of 2024, ispace Europe announced Thursday.
ispace Europe — a subsidiary of ispace Tokyo — is a Luxembourg-based private space firm which designed, manufactured and assembled the micro rover. Tenacious will be dispatched to Japan next week to integrate into “Resilience”, the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lunar lander, the firm said in a statement.
Tenacious is 26cm tall, 31.5cm wide, 54cm long, and weighs approximately 5kg. Its lightweight frame is made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics to withstand the rocket launch and other vibrations during transit to the lunar surface. Equipped with a forward-mounted HD camera, it can capture images on the lunar surface. The micro rover’s wheels are shaped in a manner that will enable it to traverse the lunar regolith stably. Commands and data will be sent and received from the mission control centre via the lander, the statement said.
Mission 2 — ispace’s second lunar exploration mission — will contribute to the NASA-led Artemis lunar program. After deploying from the lunar lander, the Tenacious micro rover will conduct surface exploration and collect lunar regolith for analysis.
ispace Europe was selected by NASA in Dec 2020 to acquire regolith from the lunar surface to be purchased by the space agency. Once on the lunar surface, ispace operators plan to use a shovel to collect a sample of lunar regolith and photograph the collection with the camera mounted on the rover, the statement added.
ispace Europe — a subsidiary of ispace Tokyo — is a Luxembourg-based private space firm which designed, manufactured and assembled the micro rover. Tenacious will be dispatched to Japan next week to integrate into “Resilience”, the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lunar lander, the firm said in a statement.
Tenacious is 26cm tall, 31.5cm wide, 54cm long, and weighs approximately 5kg. Its lightweight frame is made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastics to withstand the rocket launch and other vibrations during transit to the lunar surface. Equipped with a forward-mounted HD camera, it can capture images on the lunar surface. The micro rover’s wheels are shaped in a manner that will enable it to traverse the lunar regolith stably. Commands and data will be sent and received from the mission control centre via the lander, the statement said.
Mission 2 — ispace’s second lunar exploration mission — will contribute to the NASA-led Artemis lunar program. After deploying from the lunar lander, the Tenacious micro rover will conduct surface exploration and collect lunar regolith for analysis.
ispace Europe was selected by NASA in Dec 2020 to acquire regolith from the lunar surface to be purchased by the space agency. Once on the lunar surface, ispace operators plan to use a shovel to collect a sample of lunar regolith and photograph the collection with the camera mounted on the rover, the statement added.
