NASA taps Intuitive Machines to deliver water-measuring payload on Moon


Devdiscourse News Desk | California | Updated: 17-10-2020 14:14 IST | Created: 17-10-2020 14:14 IST
NASA taps Intuitive Machines to deliver water-measuring payload on Moon
Representative Image Image Credit: ANI
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NASA said Saturday it has awarded Houston-based company Intuitive Machines approximately USD47 million to deliver the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1) drill combined with a mass spectrometer to the Moon by December 2022. 

The payload delivery will help NASA search for ice at the Moon's South Pole as well as harvest it from below the surface, for the first time. The contract has been awarded under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

“Laying the foundation to return humans to the Moon is an incredible honor and even greater challenge.  At Intuitive Machines, we’re hungry for the pursuit of these audacious missions that will redefine what a small business is capable of,"said Steve Altemus, President and CEO of Intuitive Machines.

After landing on the Moon, PRIME-1 will drill up to 3 feet below the surface and bring ice on the lunar surface. Thereafter, using the mass spectrometer, it will measure how much ice in the sample is lost to sublimation as it turns from a solid to a vapor in the vacuum of the lunar environment.

The data from the mission will help researchers understand in-situ resources on the moon as NASA plans to establish a sustainable human presence on it by the end of the decade.

"PRIME-1 will give us tremendous insight into the resources at the Moon and how to extract them. Sending this payload to the Moon is a terrific example of our scientific and technology communities coming together with our commercial partners to develop breakthrough technologies to accomplish a range of goals on the lunar surface," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington.

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