The U.S., Soviet Union, and Japan have all sent robots to the moon over the past 50 years. Now, a group of college students is joining in by building a shoebox-sized rover that they plan to launch in May, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
The lunar rover, called Iris, will be the first privately-made American robot to explore the surface of the moon, according to the project’s website. But that’s not all—it would also be the first student-built rover, and the smallest and lightest one yet. Around 300 students from Carnegie Mellon University have all pitched in on the project.
"Hundreds of students have poured thousands of hours into Iris. We've worked for years toward this mission, and to have a launch date on the calendar is an exciting step," Raewyn Duvall, the program manager for Iris told CMU.
The Iris Lunar Rover team did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.
Iris is tiny and weighs 2 kgs (4.4 lbs)—but the design is deliberately small. The rover will fly on a private rocket carrying 14 payloads to the moon, which includes Iris, projects for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as some humans. The project involved around 300 students, who will also control and operate Moonshot Mission Control, the control center for Iris based in CMU’s campus in Pittsburgh.
Look at @CMU_Robotics's Iris Lunar Rover on Peregrine, ready to be on our way #ToTheMoon! 🚀🌔#studentsuccess #Moonshot https://t.co/AI5sURol6z
— Iris Lunar Rover (by Carnegie Mellon University) (@cmu_iris) October 14, 2022
Iris will spend a total of 50 hours on the moon’s surface before it runs out of battery, after which it will be left on the moon. It has two cameras that will help it capture images of dust on the moon’s surface.
Launching a university-led moon mission
Going to space isn’t cheap. Some (rich) civilians paid $55 million each to fly to a space station in 2022. In Iris’ case, the project cost about $800,000 which was funded partly by CMU while the rest came from private donors and crowdsourced fundraisers.
Later this year, the university is planning to send another student-developed rover called MoonRanger, which is funded by NASA and will explore the south pole of the moon which is believed to have ice formations. “If ice is sufficiently concentrated, and if its water can be processed, water becomes the key resource for living and working on the moon,” MoonRanger’s website says.
NASA launched a moon-orbiting rocket last year for the first time in several decades. Many of their other projects have focussed on exploring Mars.
The space race has sparked turf wars between major world powers for decades now. But in recent years, private players have played an active part of developing space missions. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent astronauts to space in the past, with NASA’s blessing. It first sent a crew of four in November 2020. Earlier this month, SpaceX sent its seventh group to the International Space Station for NASA. The company will also be helping NASA in its 2025 rocket launch as part of the Artemis mission.
