We are living in the modern world of science and technology where we are exposed to the miracles of artificial intelligence in the most amazing way. We have explored the places which we can’t even see with our naked eye. However, the only place we aren’t expert at is the lunar South Pole. The bottoms of craters remain permanently shadowed as a result of the angle at which the sunlight hits the craters’ lips. Despite ongoing research, scientists remain mostly in the dark about the terrain in these areas of the moon.
And yet, that’s precisely where NASA is planning to put humans by the year 2024. Many of the dark craters in the lunar South Pole contain frozen water that could be pivotal for lunar settlements, and for further missions beyond the moon. However, before astronauts venture deep into this uncalled territory, the agency is expected to send modern robots to survey the complicated terrain. The elating fact is that one of those robots might come from the labs at Northeastern University —specifically, from a bunch of students that was recently selected by NASA to develop a new and better robotic system that could be an irreplaceable part of a lunar mission by 2023, and which is a part of the plan to use the moon as a pit-stop before astronauts reach Mars.
Paige Butler, a second-year Mechanical Engineering student at Northeastern University and the team’s technology testing lead exclaimed, “If we can go to the moon, collect this ice and use it, we can break it out into oxygen and hydrogen to make jet fuel. That will allow us to eventually go on to other locations in the solar system.”Northeastern University’s system includes a four-legged robot—a design that breaks tradition from previous rovers, which have relied on wheels to traverse Mars and the moon.
Harminder Singh
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