Australia will send a rover to the moon for the primary time just a number of short years from now, if all goes in line with plan.
The nation will put a robotic rover on one in every of NASA’s Artemis moon missions, with liftoff occurring as soon as 2026, in line with the Australian Space Agency.
“Drawing on Australia’s world-leading distant operations expertise, the rover will collect lunar soil, generally known as regolith,” the agency wrote in a press release on Tuesday (Sept. 5). “NASA will try and extract oxygen from the sample. This can be a key step towards a sustainable human presence on the moon.”
Related: See Artemis 3 landing site at moon’s south pole in recent NASA photos
The rover doesn’t yet have a reputation, however the Australian Space Agency is working on that. The agency just launched a contest to hold a moniker on the pioneering robot, and you possibly can participate — should you’re an Australian resident.
You’ve until Oct. 20 to submit your entry. The Australian Space Agency will select its 4 favorites from the general public offerings, then submit the shortlist to a public vote. The winner might be announced in early December.
You’ll be able to learn more concerning the naming competition, including the principles and the necessary deadline dates, here.
NASA is working to determine a everlasting, sustainable human presence on and across the moon by the top of the 2020s via the Artemis program. The talents and knowledge learned in doing so will enable humanity’s next giant leap, a crewed mission to Mars, NASA officials say.
NASA has launched one Artemis mission thus far — Artemis 1, which sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit and back late last yr. The agency is gearing as much as send 4 astronauts across the moon on Artemis 2, which is scheduled to lift off in late 2024.
The subsequent mission after that, Artemis 3, will put boots down near the lunar south pole in late 2025 or 2026, if all goes in line with plan.
NASA is leveraging quite a lot of industrial and international partnerships to realize Artemis’ ambitious goals, because the inclusion of the Australian rover on an upcoming mission shows. As well as, the European Space Agency provides Orion’s service module, and SpaceX’s next-generation Starship vehicle might be this system’s first crewed lunar lander.