The world’s space agencies have big plans for exploration the moon It is done by both robots and humans. By the end of this decade, A.J The space station will orbit Earth’s natural satellite and a permanent base station Near the moon’s south pole it will be built shortly thereafter, if all goes according to plan
The permanently shadowed craters in the vicinity of the south pole are of particular interest to scientists as their unpolluted interiors may contain evidence of Solar SystemPast.
But since sunlight never reaches the inside of those craters, any rover that explores them will have to rely on the limited power of the onboard batteries. To help provide a steady source of power for these future lunar spacecraft, Toronto-based startup STELLS SPACE plans to land a “energy supplier” rover on the moon by 2025 that can send power to craters for robotic scientists to recharge.
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“It is widely apparent that survival on the Moon is difficult due to the harsh environmental conditions,” STELLS said in an emailed statement. “All missions to the moon face one big limitation, and that is power. At STELLS, we took the idea of a wall plug and started looking at how we actually do the day-to-day business of chargers here on Earth.”
The rover will place a “charge cube” inside the crater, then park on the crater rim and deploy its solar panels against the sun. It will transmit the electricity produced via a cable to a charging cube inside the crater where exploratory karts can radio to it and get the “juice” they need.
“The Mobile Power Rover 1 (MPR-1) vehicle will charge other lunar exploration participants who install a STELLS Lightweight Radio Receiver Profile or already have a third-party vendor profile,” Stills said in the statement. “This project aims to make lunar exploration an important step towards the ultimate goal of a long-term presence on the Moon.”
The company plans to put the 66-pound (30-kilogram) rover on the surface of the moon on board Intuitive machines‘Nova-C lander by 2025.’
The company added that wireless charging will work well in the vacuum of space. To increase the reliability of the technology, the company uses components developed for Mars rovers, geostationary satellites, and deep space probes.
Other private companies as well as space agencies are currently developing technology that would help create a A permanent infrastructure ecosystem On and around the Moon for simplified human and robotic exploration. For example, in 2020, NASA awarded a contract to the Finnish telecom company NOKIA to build an LTE/4G communications system on the moon. pH Matters in Columbus, Ohio, has received funding to develop renewable fuel cells capable of producing energy and storing energy on the lunar surface, and the Sierra Nevada Foundation in Madison, Wisconsin, is working on demonstration devices that use methane and concentrated solar power to extract oxygen from lunar regolith. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency is leading the development of an aircraft Lunar navigation system It would extend the reach of GPS satellites to the Moon.
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