It all starts on Monday, January 8, at 2:18 a.m. ## Delegating deliveries to the Moon
Peregrine is packed with payloads from both government and commercial partners.
Though many have scientific purposes, others are distinctly non-scientific.
But seeing as NASA helped to fund the mission, well start with them.
Conceptual image of the Iris rover, a student-built robot included in Astrobotic’s inaugural Peregrine mission.Image: Carnegie Mellon University
TheNear-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System(NIRVSS) will analyze the lunar surface, identifying water and other substances.
Lastly, theNeutron Spectrometer System(NSS) will hunt for hydrogen to indicate potential water sources.
Together, these tools mark a significant step in lunar exploration and potential habitation.
Conceptual image of Peregrine.Image: Astrobotic
Carnegie Mellon is also sending a time capsule to the Moon.
The library is printed onto nickel NanoFiche, an ultra-durable analog nano storage medium,accordingto Astrobotic.
The mission will also carry the Genesis Blocks textthe inaugural block in the Bitcoin blockchainto the Moon.
NASA’s Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL) has been tested on Earth, as shown in this 2017 COBALT flight, but now it’ll be put to the test on the Moon.Photo: NASA
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A detailed view of one of the five Mexican-built robots headed to the Moon.Image: National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
A partial view of MoonArk, detailing a segment of its four chambers.Photo: Carnegie Mellon University
Space-bound capsules containing trace amounts of ashes.Photo: Celestis Inc.
