NASA Viper Mission Leveraging Open-Source Software & Off-The-Shelf Hardware To Advance Moon And Mars Exploration
VIPER Water-Seeking Moon Rover Mission Set For 2023 To Utilize Crowdsourced Programming And Retail Computing Options Favored For Low Overhead, Interoperability, Widespread Familiarity; VIPER Deputy Lead Terry Fong Tells MIT Technology Review Open Source Enables His Team To More Quickly “Take Advances From The Research World And Put It Into Flight” And That The Negligible Time Lag To Moon Makes Utilization Of Commercially Available Hardware “Not Limited By Radiation, Hard Flight [Ratings]” Possible; Mars Helicopter Ingenuity Is Set To Run Popular Operating System Linux On Mars Flight NET 14 Apr; NASA Hosts A Slew Of Mission Planning Software Available To Interested Parties Worldwide
Credits: NASA
NASA Moon Rover VIPER Meets Risk, Cost And Schedule Constraints Of ‘Key Decision Point C’ Internal Assessment, Clearing Way For Operational Planning And Construction; 1.5×1.5×2.5m, 430kg Vehicle To Be Built At JSC With Instrument Input From KSC / Honeybee Robotics, Managed From Ames Research Center, Is To Land Late 2023 Via Astrobotic Griffin In MSP Region For ~100 Day Mission During Which 1-Meter TRIDENT Drill And 3 Spectrometers Will Be Controlled With Little Lag From Earth Through X Band / Deep Space Network As Volatile-Seeking Mission Traverses 20km
LRO Data Indicates ~10-20% Of PSRs Sufficiently Cool (<110 K) To Allow Ice Formation Are Depressions Casting 1-cm – 1-km Shadows, Widely Dispersed Across Moon Polar Regions (>80° Latitude); Inclusion Of “Mini Cold Traps” In Study By UC Boulder / PSI Researchers Suggests Total Possible Lunar Ice Containing Area Is ~40,000 km2 (23,000 km2 Within <20° Moon South Pole, 17,000 km2 Within <20° Moon North Pole); Total PSRs Comprise Just 0.15% Of Total Surface Area; Relatively Small Cold Traps May Offer More Favorable Mission Parameters Than Large Craters
