AstroAnt's swarm of tiny robots could be key to unlocking the secrets of the Moon and the future of humanity
Possibly the world's cutest robot could be the key to unlocking some of the Moon's best kept secrets thanks to a team of scientists.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 53 years since man last walked on the Moon, and while we’re sending a crew back there with NASA’s Artemis III mission, it’s not the first time we've settled down on that rocky giant since Eugene Cernan took those fabled steps.
A series of lunar missions are setting the stage for Artemis III, and following IM-1’s legacy as the first soft lunar landing by a private company in February 2024, Intuitive Machines has sent another rover up there for a very different mission.
The IM-2 mission has, unfortunately, ended with disaster, and just 24 hours after the Nova-C lunar lander headed out on its mission to the shadowy South Pole of the Moon, Athena has been declared defunct.
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Ahead of IM-2’s short-lived mission, we spoke to Nicola Buck, serving as the Chief Marketing Officer for Castrol and mission spokesperson. Alongside Athena, the rover was packing some serious tech courtesy of its tiny AstroAnt robots.
Roughly the size of a toy car, AstroAnts are a swarm of R2-D2-inspired robots that could represent big things for the future of space travel and undertaking tasks that might typically be too dangerous for humans.
Despite temperatures at the South Pole of the Moon dipping as low as -382°F, it’s thought that the potential discovery of water there will catapult the future of the human race forward.
Explaining why the discovery of water at the South Pole of the Moon is so important, Buck said: “All the science that we have points to the fact that we believe, due to the temperatures in the South Pole of the Moon, due to the way it's shielded from sunlight, due to the craters which exist there, that we believe there's the presence of water.”
Admitting that the only thing left is for someone to actually find it, Buck continued to explain what water on the Moon could mean for us: “In a world where humans are on Earth, then you get into the presence of water, obviously, is quite interesting.
“If you can separate out the hydrogen in H2O, then you get into the materials that are needed for rocket fuel.
“So you open up the potential for, when we think about how you're making space exploration and interplanetary travel in the future, a possibility that if you can do that.
Saying that we’re getting into the theoretical realms of creating rocket fuel from materials potentially in abundance on the Moon, the solar system suddenly feels a lot smaller.
Referring to these experiments as the ‘long-term vision’, Buck added: “That's why experiments like this with our AstroAnts become part of that. Because if you do get into that world, or maybe we should say, when we get into that world of space exploration and travel, you've got to bring down the cost
“Bring new technologies in that make everything easier. And that's why Castrol is collaborating on the [Astro]Ant, because of that vision for if these little ants could make monitoring.”
Buck hyped the commercialization of space travel, and although it’s all endorsed by NASA, Castrol teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to provide lubricants to protect the AstroAnts from the harsh conditions of the Moon.
Reiterating the fact that the space industry will potentially be worth $1.3 trillion by 2035, she encourages brands and companies to get into this ‘interesting space’ while they can.
As for the potential colonization of other planets like Elon Musk’s plans to plant a flag on Mars, Buck concluded: “I do believe is that if we're going to successfully enable some of these human missions, whether that's to live somewhere or just to send people into space, it’s going to need a lot of technology development and we have to make it simpler, we have to make it cheaper, we have to make it safer. And that's where companies like ours can come in.”