Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA sending probes to the far side of the moon for the first time

Georgina Torbet
By
NASA

For the first time, NASA will send a probe to the far side of the moon. Before sending humans back to the moon under its Artemis program, the agency plans to send three payloads to be delivered to the moon to investigate more about our planet’s satellite.

The program, called Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM), aims to deliver these probes by 2024. Originally, the goal had been to get humans back on the moon by 2024, but that was widely considered unrealistic and has been pushed back. The agency has not yet stated when it aims to have humans back on the moon, but it has said it intends to continue awarding contracts for lunar deliveries through 2028.

Recommended Videos

The two probes visiting the far side of the moon will be the Farside Seismic Suite (FSS), a package containing two seismometers that will record seismic activity on the moon, and the Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite (LITMS), which will include a drill and a sounder to investigate the moon’s interior. Both probes will be sent to the Schrödinger basin, a large impact crater located near the moon’s south pole on its far side.

Related

NASA has never sent a probe to the moon’s far side, sometimes colloquially (but inaccurately) referred to as the dark side of the moon. However, China has visited this area, sending a probe there in 2019. But there’s still much to learn about the moon, particularly its interior.

The third probe selected by NASA is called Lunar Vertex, which will investigate Reiner Gamma — a feature called a lunar swirl, which seems to have formed due to the moon’s magnetic field.

All three payloads will be delivered to the moon by private companies, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

“These investigations demonstrate the power of CLPS to deliver big science in small packages, providing access to the lunar surface to address high-priority science goals for the Moon,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “When scientists analyze these new data alongside lunar samples returned from Apollo and data from our many orbital missions, they will advance our knowledge of the lunar surface and interior, and increase our understanding of crucial phenomenon such as space weathering to inform future crewed missions to the Moon and beyond.”

NASA hopes that information obtained from this program will be helpful in the long-term plans for sending humans back to the moon.

“These selections add to our robust pipeline of science payloads and investigations to be delivered to the Moon through CLPS,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “With each new PRISM selection, we will build on our capabilities to enable bigger and better science and prove technology which will help pave the way for returning astronauts to the Moon through Artemis.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
NASA, Boeing delay Starliner’s first crewed flight again
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Boeing / Boeing

The first crewed test flight of Boeing Space’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft has been delayed yet again, but this time it’s not the result of an issue with the vehicle itself.

Read more
Meet NASA’s trio of mini moon rovers set to launch next year
Part of NASA’s CADRE technology demonstration, three small rovers that will explore the Moon together show off their ability to drive as a team autonomously – without explicit commands from engineers – during a test in a clean room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in December 2023.

NASA is ramping up its plans for exploring the moon, not only in terms of preparing to send astronauts there but also rovers. There's the VIPER rover, which will search for water around the lunar south pole, and now NASA is introducing a trio of mini rovers called CADRE, or Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration. These will work together as a team to map the lunar surface, testing the possibilities of using rovers in groups for future exploration.

The rovers, developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are just the size of a carry-on suitcase. They are designed to move independently but share data so they can cover more ground than a single rover could. They'll have to work over a lunar day, which is about two weeks, to map out features on the surface and look below ground using radar.

Read more
NASA addresses the crack in the hatch of the Crew-8 spacecraft
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission launches from Kennedy Space Center at 10:53 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 3, 2024.

NASA and SpaceX have sent off the latest batch of astronauts to visit the International Space Station, with the launch of the Crew-8 mission late last night. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida just before 11 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 3, but there was a risk during that the launch might have been cancelled due to a crack discovered in the hatch seal of the spacecraft around 30 minutes before liftoff.

This morning, NASA shared further details about the crack and why they were confident in letting the launch go ahead.

Read more