The mission is scheduled for December 2022
NASA plans to harvest water ice from the moon’s south pole. To do this, they’re working with Houston-based Intuitive Machines to land an ice-breaking exercise in December 2022.
Intuitive machines will receive $ 47 million to conduct NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1) and will be the first mission to harvest water ice from inside the moon. The Moon Ice Mission falls under NASA’s Artemis program, the main task of which is to land astronauts on the moon again in 2024.
What is Intuitive Machine’s job?
NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science Missions Thomas Zurbuchen, said the information they receive from the PRIME-1 mission will help them learn more about how to build a sustainable lunar presence for their astronauts.
PRIME-1, weighing 88 pounds, is carried by Intuitive Machines on their NOVA-C lander as part of NASA’s commercial Lunar Payload Services program, also known as CLPS. Intuitive machines are part of other robotic machines under CLPS and will fly other objects to the moon.
Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, shared how it is an incredible honor to lay the foundation for man’s return to the moon. He also said this is a good opportunity for his company to show how capable it is.
Once PRIME-1 lands, it will use its drill to dig about 1 meter below the surface of the moon to look for buried ice water. A mass spectrometer is also part of the project to see how much ice is lost from the PRIME-1 sample through sublimation. This happens in space, where a solid is converted directly into steam. PRIME-1 will give NASA a lot of information about the resources available on the moon and how we can use them.