PRIME-1
Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) is a NASA lunar project, expected to launch and be deployed in December, 2022.[1]
PRIME-1 will be the first on-site resource utilization demonstration on Earth's Moon. Additionally, for the first time, NASA will robotically sample and analyze for ice from below the surface. Two components make up PRIME-1, both of which will be mounted to a commercial lunar lander:
- The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT): TRIDENT will drill up to three feet deep, extracting lunar regolith, or soil, up to the surface. The instrument can drill in multiple segments, pausing and retracting to deposit cuttings on the surface after each depth increment.
- Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo): This modified-for-spaceflight, commercial-off-the-shelf mass spectrometer will evaluate the drill cuttings for water and other chemical compounds. Soil samples from multiple depths will be analyzed.[2]
PRIME-1 will launch as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, on the Nova-C IM-2 mission.[3]
References[]
- ^ "NASA - NSSDCA - Spacecraft - Details".
- ^ Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ Apollo to Artemis: Drilling on the Moon
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- Lunar science
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