Commercial operations on the Moon won't just be round-the-clock but round-the-calendar as ispace, inc. and the University of Leicester partner to develop nuclear heaters to allow future landers and rovers to survive the freezing lunar night.
There have been a number of robotic lunar landing attempts recently with varying degrees of success. However, they've all had one thing in common: they had a very limited mission lifespan. The problem is that the Moon is subject to extreme swings of temperature from day to night. When the Sun is up, the thermometer rises to 250 °F (121 °C) and at night it plunges to -208 °F (-133 °C).
Daytime isn't too much of a problem because the Moon's surface is a vacuum, so it's relatively easy to control heating with reflective surfaces. Nighttime is another matter. A spacecraft's heat can quickly radiate away and by the time the Sun rises again after two weeks of darkness the lander's batteries and electronics can be damaged beyond saving.
Looking to a future with a permanent human presence on the Moon that includes a lot of commercial activities, ispace and the Leicester's Space Nuclear Power group want to develop nuclear heater units for future missions, beginning with ispace's Series 3 lunar landers and rovers. READ MORE...
