Israeli startup WeSpace Technologies plans to send a hopper drone to the Moon. It will be a fully autonomous vehicle with jet engines, capable of flying from place to place and hovering above the surface. The company hopes that it will be useful for the implementation of the Artemis program.
Lunar drone from WeSpace
The WeSpace startup from Israel has announced that it is developing a lunar hopper drone that will be useful during the exploration of the moon of our planet. The company was founded back in 2019, after the Beresheet probe, created by private developers, reached the Moon, but crashed while trying to land on it.
Then one of the developers of Beresheet, Yigal Harel, decided that it was necessary to create a more perfect robot, and teamed up with Ifat Feffer for this purpose. Together they tried to bring the idea to life.
The company reports that its hopper is an autonomous vehicle equipped with jet engines. It will be able to fly from place to place, hover over certain areas or deliver payloads to the desired point on the surface.
“Our Autonomously Flying Robotic Systems will perform a diverse set of lunar missions and retrieve valuable information about in-situ resources such as water, metals and minerals. It will carry scientific and engineering sensors, search for habitation potential sites and retrieve valuable data for our customers’ needs, especially in hard-to-reach areas where nobody else is capable of doing so,” says on the WeSpace website.
Advantages of the new system
WeSpace Technologies hopes that their hoppers will be needed when implementing the Artemis program. Already at the end of this decade, Americans are planning to land at the south pole of the Moon. Then they have to start building the base.
In the exploration of the Moon, the United States plans to rely on broad international support provided by the Artemis Agreements. Israel is a participant in them, and WeSpace Technologies hopes that they will represent their country.
Hoppers will be especially useful in various dark places. Such, for example, are deep craters near the poles of the Moon. Ice deposits may be hiding there, but at the same time these are points where constant communication with the Earth is impossible. That’s where the autonomy of WeSpace Technologies drones will come in handy.
According to www.space.com.
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