Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute Astrobotic Technology has
unveiled a new design and name – Polaris – for its lunar rover,
which will prospect for potentially rich deposits of water ice,
methane and other resources at the moon's north pole.
Astrobotic, a Robotics Institute spin-off founded by Robotics
Professor William “Red” Whittaker, is pioneering commercial
lunar exploration with expeditions that deliver payloads for
space agencies and corporate customers. It also seeks to win the
Google Lunar X Prize, which will award more than $20 million to
a privately funded team that lands and operates a robot on the
moon by December 2015. The company’s plans call for Polaris to
be launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral
in late October 2015. Four days later, Polaris will land at the
lunar north pole during its summer, when patches of ground that
are in cold shadow most of the year get brief illumination. This
is where ice will be found closest to the surface and when the
solar-powered robot wi