Friday, March 29

Mexico will send mining microrobots mission to the Moon | Digital Trends Spanish


A team of scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will send a mission to the Moon, whose objective will be to test a system of mining microrobots.

The idea is to check if tiny machines, which will work in a coordinated way, can function as lunar miners and not only for the extraction of metals, but also for the production of oxygen. Specifically, its mission will be to check the possibility of mounting structures on the Moon, and the analysis of lunar dust.

The robots were designed and built by a group of 200 students from various careers, from engineering to geology and psychology.

Due to the characteristics of the mission, which involves five robots less than five inches in diameter working together, the UNAM calls it Hive.

Gustavo Medina Tanco, head of the UNAM Space Instrumentation Laboratory, stressed that the Beehive mission seeks to integrate Mexico into space exploration and research consortia, as well as exploitation for commercial purposes.

The robots were designed by 200 students from various careers at UNAM. Photo: UNAM

“Robots are going to have a capital importance in this process, acting autonomously”, highlighted the researcher.

The Hive mission will take off in June, and the five micro-mining robots are expected to complete their work within nine to 10 days.

For his part, Salvador Landeros, director of the Mexican Space Agency, said that other missions to the Moon are planned.

The manager said that among the missions, one in collaboration with NASA stands out, which consists of launching a constellation of nanosatellites in 2024, and that it is part of the Artemis mission, which has the objective of taking humans to the Moon again.

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