NASA may send a backup, nuclear powered Mars rover to the Moon

Endurance was launched on Mars in July 2020, and in its place, a similar rover, Curiosity, was launched to the red planet in November 2011.

“It makes sense, early on, when we have a problem that we want to test here before we put it on Mars,” Isaacman said. “But we’ve had years of using two rovers on Mars, and we have this equipment that taxpayers have invested heavily in. So the question was asked, why would we send it to the Moon?”

Although the Mars rover was designed to operate on the surface of Mars, JPL scientists said Promise could be adapted to operate on the Moon. NASA will also need to update the scientific instruments on board, but Isaacman said this represents a creative way to advance the agency’s interests in understanding the environment it wants to establish for long-term human existence.

“We have the tools, and that’s what we have to do to win the team, to have talent like Promise on the Moon,” he said.

They can do a lot of useful science

There are many useful scientific and research goals that a rover like this could accomplish. NASA studied these questions more than ten years ago with the concept of the “Endurance” rover that would have traveled about 2,000 km across the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the Moon. This is a large PDF file for more information). He was never arrested.

The decision was not final, and NASA is still exploring the possibility of using Promise as the main vehicle for its lunar fleet. However, Tuesday’s announcement confirms that Isaacman and his team are looking to NASA for hardware and other equipment to advance the agency’s mission to return to the Moon and build a base.

The space agency is making progress during the war as it seeks to accelerate plans to land a manned mission to the southern tip of the Moon before China and explore the most interesting sites there. Mars is not the most important thing nearby.

Casey Dreier, director of space policy for the Planetary Society, said: “It’s very symbolic, harvesting the remnants of the Mars program and sending them to the Moon.