Moon Archives

February 27, 2009April 26, 2016 by Ian O'Neill

Obama Will Retire Shuttle in 2010, US Will Go Back to the Moon in 2020

[/caption]In a budget blueprint released by the White House on Thursday, President Barack Obama has confirmed his intent to carry out the planned retirement of the ageing Space Shuttle next year. Additionally, the the blueprint affirms Obama’s stance on a return trip to the Moon. The US will return to the lunar surface by the year 2020, following the time scale set out by George W. Bush’s 2004 Vision for Space Exploration. However, there is no mention that the next manned lunar mission will be carried out by the Constellation Program, a project plagued by criticism about its design and technology.

Although the blueprint may differ from the final budget submitted to Congress in April, it looks like there is some certainty about the future of the shuttle and the direction NASA will be taking over the next decade. And now the space agency has a little bit more money to do something about that troublesome 5-year gap in US manned access to space…

So, any hope to extend the life of the Shuttle looks to have been dashed. Although there could still be a chance for a shuttle extension when the final budget is submitted, it seems as if President Obama has made his intent very clear; the 25 year-old space launch system will be mothballed, as planned, in 2010. This may come as a relief to many as extending the operational lifetime of the shuttle could be a safety risk, however, many on Florida’s Space Coast won’t be so happy as they could be looking at losing their jobs sooner than they would have hoped.

Generally, these decisions have been welcomed, including the extra $2.4 billion NASA will receive for the 2010 fiscal year (when compared with 2008):

Combined with $1 billion provided to NASA in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law Feb. 17, the agency would receive $2 billion more than in the $17.7 billion 2009 NASA budget that was passed by the House – an increase that equals an Obama campaign promise. — Florida Today

It remains uncertain how the gap between shuttle retirement and Constellation launch could be shortened from the minimum of five years, but the extra cash is bound to boost confidence. But where does the blueprint say Constellation is even part of the plan? It doesn’t, sparking some media sources to point out that it remains a possibility that the Ares rocket system could be abandoned in favour of making the existing Atlas V or Delta IV rockets human rated. However, space policy specialists are advising not to read too much into the omission.

“The budget doesn’t say a whole lot about any specific system,” said John Logsdon, a space policy analyst at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. “I wouldn’t interpret the absence of the words ‘Constellation’, ‘Ares’, and ‘Orion’ one way or another. That’s really up to the the new management team, when it gets there.”

After all, since the departure of Michael Griffin as NASA Administrator, the space agency has been without a leader. Acting NASA Administrator Christopher Scolese is currently at the helm, saying that the new budget “is fiscally responsible and reflects the administration’s desire for a robust and innovative agency.” Unfortunately the details about the use of Constellation may remain sketchy until the final budget is submitted.

This may be the case, but President Obama has obviously seen the merit in the original plans to get man back to the Moon by the year 2020, despite criticism from a guy who has actually stood on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin. In an “alternative” proposal for the future of NASA, Aldrin and two co-authors posted a draft of the “Unified Space Vision” on the National Space Society’s website this week (Update: the draft has now been “Removed At Request of the Authors”), urging the administration not to mount an unnecessary lunar mission (been there, done that) and go straight for manned exploration of the asteroids and Mars. The Unified Space Vision, unfortunately, was probably too hard on NASA’s accomplishments, saying that “post-Apollo NASA” has become a “visionless jobs-providing enterprise that achieves little or nothing,” in developing a viable space transportation system. Many of the points raised are valid (and occasionally very tough), but would require a complete change in NASA’s structure to accomplish. I doubt we’ll see any radical changes being enacted any time soon.

So, we now have a pretty good idea as to what’s going to happen to the shuttle next year; it looks like the plan to get the US back to the Moon by 2020 is still on and NASA has been given an extra $2 billion to play with. I hope they spend it wisely, perhaps on private space launch contracts?

Sources: Florida Today, New Scientist

February 25, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Robots Could Prepare Moon Outpost Site

Small digger/loader on the Moon. Creidt: Astrobotic Technology

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A new type of lunar robots is being designed which could help prepare locations on the Moon for human outposts and landing pads. With supervised autonomy, small robots the size of riding mowers and weighing 300 kg or less could prepare a site in about 6 months, says a new study by Astrobotic Technology Inc. in cooperation with Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.

Anyone else having visions of Wall-E on the Moon?

Using small robots would offer an alternative to bringing large loaders to the Moon, as Caterpillar, Inc. has proposed, and is working on details with NASA of using a big skid steer loader on the Moon (see previous UT article, “Heavy Construction on the Moon.”)

“NASA faces a challenge in planning the layout for its outpost, which is expected to begin operations in 2020,” said William “Red” Whittaker, chairman and chief technical officer of Astrobotic and a Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics. “For efficient cargo transfer, the landing site needs to be close to the outpost’s crew quarters and laboratories. Each rocket landing and takeoff, however, will accelerate lunar grit outwards from the pad. With no atmosphere to slow it down, the dry soil would sandblast the outpost.”

The research examined two potential solutions: 1) construction of a berm around the landing site, and 2) creation of a hard-surface landing pad using indigenous materials.

In the first solution, researchers found that two rovers weighing 330 pounds each would take less than six months to build a berm around a landing site to block the sandblasting effect. A berm 8.5 feet tall in a 160-foot semi-circle would require moving 2.6 million pounds of lunar dirt. Robots this size can be sent to NASA’s planned polar outpost site in advance of human expeditions. Astrobotic Technology Inc. has proposed that landing site preparation be provided by commercial ventures.

In the second solution, researchers showed how small robots could comb the lunar soil for rocks, gathering them to pave a durable grit-free landing pad, said John Kohut, Astrobotic’s chief executive officer. “This might reduce the need to build protective berms. To discern the best approach, early robotic scouting missions need to gather on-site information about the soil’s cohesion levels and whether rocks and gravel of the right size can be found at the site.”

Astrobotic's plan for lunar rover for Google Lunar X-PRIZE. Credit: Astrobotic Tech

Whittaker is directing the development of Astrobotic’s first lunar robot, which is vying to win the $20 million Google Lunar X-PRIZE by visiting the Apollo 11 landing site and transmitting high-definition video to Earth. They are looking to launch in December 2010. The robot has been undergoing field trials for several months.

Details of the study are available at www.astrobotictech.com.

February 19, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Kaguya Captures Eclipse — From the Moon

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse as seen from the Moon. Credit: JAXA

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Here’s something you don’t see everyday. In fact, this is the first time this has ever been seen. On Feb. 10 Japan’s Kaguya spacecraft in orbit around the moon successfully took an image of a penumbral lunar eclipse. That’s the Earth passing in front of the sun, as seen from the Moon. From the Moon! The image was taken just at the moment when the Earth covered up most of the sun, creating a diamond ring effect. If we’re lucky on Earth, we can see this effect in a solar eclipse, when the Moon blocks the Sun as seen from Earth. Here, Earth’s atmosphere is lit up by the sun, creating the ring and just enough sunlight is sneaking by on one side of the Earth, creating the diamond. Sensational! Plus, there’s a movie of the eclipse, too!

A penumbral lunar eclipse is a phenomenon in which the Sun, Earth and Moon line up in tandem, and the moon is in the Earth’s penumbra, or, when you look from the Moon, the Sun is partially covered by the Earth (partial eclipse.) When the phenomenon occurs, the volume of light from the Sun to the Moon decreases, making the Moon’s surface look darker when you see it from the Earth.

The Bad Astronomer waxes eloquently about the event, so give him a visit.

Source: JAXA

February 9, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

LCROSS Gets Set for Lunar Smash-Up

Artist's rendering of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS at separation, courtesy of NASA

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Early next week, a NASA craft designed to hammer the moon will travel from California to the Kennedy Space Center — one step closer to the planned April 24 launch. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, will hitch a ride to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The orbiter carries a suite of instruments for taking detailed temperature readings, looking at the effects of radiation on the lunar surface and scoping out good landing sites for future missions, among other science goals.

Sound a little intrusive? That’s nothing compared to the 15-foot (4.5-meter) deep, 100-foot (30 meter) wide hole that LCROSS will gouge into the lunar surface.

The whole package will spend about four days in transit to the moon, and then will orbit for several months, searching for the best impact site and setting up a prime trajectory. Around the first of August, LCROSS will approach the moon in two parts. First, it will fire its car-sized rocket to separate from the orbiter, then quickly shed the rocket and send it pummeling into the moon — at a whopping 5,600 miles (9,000 km) per hour. The target is the permanently shadowed floor in one of the North Pole’s craters, where ice is most likely to be hiding. The impact is expected to dislodge 220 tons of material from the lunar surface. Debris will fly as far as 30 miles (50 km) from the impact site, providing a Deep-Impact-style explosion that should be visible with amateur telescopes on Earth.

Then, the LCROSS satellite itself will fly through the plume on a collision course with the lunar surface, sending information to Earth until the moment of its own demise. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be watching, along with India’s lunar orbiter, called Chandrayaan-1, Japan’s Kaguya (SELENE) and a host of Earth-bound professional telescopes. The sweet spot for observing the impact will be just after sunset in Hawaii, and possibly on the western coasts of the United States and South America — with countries along the moon’s course catching the aftermath.

Hints of water were sent to Earth in the 1990s, when the Naval Research Laboratory’s Clementine mission detected hydrogen signals at the lunar poles. The data did not reveal whether the element is contained in water or another hydrogen-bearing compound, such as hydrated minerals or hydrocarbons. LCROSS is the fourth mission to aim for the moon’s surface in the past decade. NASA’s 1999 impact with the Lunar Prospector failed to dislodge detectable water ice. The European Space Agency’s SMART-1 pummeled the lunar surface in 2006, while telecopes all over the world took data on the ejecta. India’s Moon Impact Probe detached from Chandrayaan-1 and crashed into the moon in October, with a goal of analyzing lunar dust and especially to find Helium 3, an isotope rare on Earth which could hold value for energy production. LCROSS will make the first definitive investigation for water within a permanently shadowed crater, the most likely place where it wouldn’t have evaporated over the moon’s history.

The $79 million, cost-capped mission is unusual because it utilizes commercially available technology for some of its software and scientific instruments. LCROSS could serve as a model for future missions that employ available technology, rather than relying on designs built from scratch, said Jonas Dino, a NASA spokesman at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Finding water on the moon would boost its usefulness for supporting infrastructure. The moon could, for example, serve as a launching site for manned exploration of Mars or destinations beyond. The moon’s gravity, just one-sixth the strength of Earth’s, would allow the use of much smaller rockets to go the same distance as missions from Earth. Hydrogen from the lunar surface could also be used in making rocket fuel, which would cut costs for space exploration.

Sources: LCROSS website and interviews with NASA spokesmen Grey Hautaluoma, in Washington, D.C. and Jonas Dino in California.

January 23, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Take a 3-D Ride Through Tycho Crater

Central peak of Tycho Crater. Credit: JAXA

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This is extremely very cool! Make sure you have your 3-D glasses on and take a 3-D ride in and around Tycho Crater on the Moon, courtesy of Japan’s Kaguya (Selene) mission. Tycho Crater is the big crater located on the Moon’s southern hemisphere, easily visible, especially when the Moon is full. The crater is notable for its emanating bright rays. The movie starts with an overview image of Tycho Crater, then approaches the central peak, flies along the steep slope of the inner wall, flies over the backside of the crater, and approaches the central peak again. Go get your 3-D glasses, and view the movie here. And hang on!

More about the movie and Tycho Crater:

The creation of the two minute 3-D analglyph fly-through movie was made using data from Kaguya’s Stereo Terrain Camera. The crater is named after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. The impact that created Tycho Crater ejected highland anorthositic crust all over the near side of the Moon. This impact by a small asteroidal body took place about 100 million years ago, when the dinosaurs inhabited the Earth. It was, however, still a relatively recent event in lunar history, and the effects of the impact event can clearly be seen in this movie. Enjoy!

Source: Kaguya website

January 23, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Chandrayaan-1 Instrument Detects First X-ray Signature from Moon

Chandrayaan-1 was flying over the nearside of the Moon when the flare went off – in a region of lunar highlands close to the crater Boscovich. Credit: STFC

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The X-ray instrument on board the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft orbiting the moon was switched on and successfully detected its first X-ray signature from the moon. The C1XS X-ray camera, (pronounced like “kicks”) detected the X-ray signal from a region near the Apollo landing sites on December 12th 2008 at 02:36 UT. The solar flare that caused the X-ray fluorescence was exceedingly weak, approximately 20 times smaller than the minimum C1XS was designed to detect, which is good news for the sensitivity of the instrument. “C1XS has exceeded expectations as to its sensitivity and has proven by its performance that it is the most sensitive X-ray spectrometer of its kind in history,” said Ms. Shyama Narendranath, Instrument Operations Scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The instrument will help map out the composition of the Moon in much greater detail than has ever been done, and could help settle a long-running debate about how the Moon formed.

The leading theory of how the Moon was created is that a Mars-sized object slammed into the Earth early in its history, creating our orbiting moon. A better accounting of the Moon’s makeup is needed to solidify the theory.

A few other spacecraft, like Chandra have taken X-ray images of the moon, but X-ray imaging from Earth is impossible because our atmosphere cuts out X-rays from space.

The C1XS will work by looking at the X-rays from our sun that have been absorbed by atoms in the lunar soil, then re-emitted in such a way as to reveal the chemistry of the surface. The spectrometer is sensitive to magnesium, aluminium and silicon x-rays.

The red curve shows the combined signal from all 24 C1XS X-ray detectors during the solar flare at 02:35-02:38 UT on Dec. 12th. The black dashed line shows the normal background signal detected by C1XS. The three “fingers” sticking up between 1 and 2 keV are due to the presence of the elements magnesium, aluminium and silicon (left to right) on the Moon. Credit: STFC

The X-ray camera collected 3 minutes of data from the Moon just as the flare started and the camera finished its observation. The signal reveals the X-ray fingerprint of a part of the lunar surface. As the mission continues, C1XS will build up a detailed picture of the ingredients that have gone into the Moon.

Barry Kellett, instrument scientist from the UK’s Science and Technologies Facilities Council said, “Despite the small quantity of data, our initial analysis and modeling shows that C1XS has identified the chemistry of this area of the Moon.”

The instrument was jointly developed by the UK’s STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and ISRO.
Professor Richard Holdaway, Director of STFC’s Space Science and Technology Department, said, “We are thrilled that C1XS has started its mission so successfully and is exceeding expectations. This sophisticated instrument will not only help us better understand the origin of the Earth-Moon system but will ensure that the UK plays an important role in this international activity.”

Source: STFC

January 22, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Has the Moon Changed Its Face?

The far side of the moon, as seen by the Apollo 16 astronauts. Credit: NASA

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The moon’s “near side” always faces Earth, because the moon spins once on its axis in precisely the same amount of time it takes to revolve around the Earth. But things could have been different billions of years ago. A computer analysis of the amount of craters on the different hemispheres of the Moon shows that the far side may have once been facing Earth. A large asteroid impact may have caused the moon to change the way its faces Earth.

One consequence of the Moon being locked in a spin-orbit resonance of synchronous rotation is that more impacts should occur on the Moon’s western hemisphere than the eastern, as that side would be facing into orbit, making it more likely to be hit by debris.

But Mark Wieczorek and Matthieu Le Feuvre at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics in France compared the relative ages of the craters, using data about the sequence in which ejected material was deposited on the surface, and they found the opposite to be true. Although the youngest impact basins were concentrated in the western hemisphere, as expected, the older craters were mostly congregated in the east. This suggests that the eastern face had once been bombarded more than the western face.

This could have happened if a large asteroid impact caused the moon to do an about face. The researchers estimate after the impact, the moon would have appeared to turn slowly as viewed from Earth, and slowly would have come into its current position.

In looking at several of the largest lunar impact basins, there are several suspects for impacts that could have temporarily unlocked the Moon from synchronous rotation.

“We show that there is less than a 2% probability that the oldest lunar impact basins are randomly distributed across the lunar surface,” the researchers say. “Furthermore, these basins are preferentially located near the Moon’s antapex of motion, and this configuration has less than a 0.3% probability of occurring by chance.”

The team studied the relative age and distribution of 46 known craters. Wieczorek says the Chandrayaan-1 or Kaguya orbiters could provide information on more craters that would help in further research in this area.

For more information, see the abstract.

Sources: New Scientist

January 17, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Latest Chandrayaan-1 Images

A Mini-SAR strip overlain on an Earth-based, Arecibo Observatory radar telescope image. Taken Nov. 17, 2008, the south-polar SAR strip shows a part of the moon never seen before: a portion of Haworth crater that is permanently shadowed from Earth and the sun. Credit: ISRO/NASA/JHUAPL/LPI/Cornell University/Smithsonian

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A few “new” images have been released from the Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission. The latest are the first images from NASA’s radar instrument that’s hitching a ride on board the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) spacecraft. Called the Mini-SAR (synthetic aperture radar), NASA’s instrument recently passed initial in-flight tests and sent back its first data from Nov. 17, 2008, showing the first look inside one of the Moon’s coldest, darkest craters. The image above shows a swath from the Mini-SAR overlaid on a ground-based telescope image of Haworth Crater. The swath shows the floor of this permanently-shadowed polar crater on the moon that isn’t visible from Earth. The instrument will map both polar regions to search the insides of craters for water ice.

“The only way to explore such areas is to use an orbital imaging radar such as Mini-SAR,” said Benjamin Bussey, deputy principal investigator for Mini-SAR, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “This is an exciting first step for the team which has worked diligently for more than three years to get to this point.”

Bright areas represent surface roughness or slopes pointing toward the spacecraft. The data cover an area approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) by 18 kilometers (11 miles).

The two north-polar strips have been mosaicked to show the western rim of Seares crater.Credit: ISRO/NASA/JHUAPL/LPI Click for larger image

Two more radar swaths from the Moon’s north pole have been stitched together to show the western rim of Seares crater. The mosaic covers an area roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) long by 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) wide.

“During the next few months we expect to have a fully calibrated and operational instrument collecting valuable science data at the moon,” said Jason Crusan, program executive for the Mini-RF Program, which also includes a radar instrument on the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission

Mini-SAR is one of 11 instruments on Chandrayaan 1. Not setting any speed records in making the images available to the public, a few other images were recently released that were also taken in November 2008. Mission managers have had to deal with the spacecraft overheating slightly due to orbiting in almost continual sunlight, and therefore they decided to use only one instrument at a time. Normal operations should begin soon, where all the instruments will be able to function normally and together.

This Digital Elevation Model of the lunar surface was generated by using imagery from India’s Terrian Mapping Camera. The TMC will map topography on both sides of the Moon and prepare a 3-dimensional atlas with high spatial and altitude resolution.

This image, also from the TMC, shows details of a lunar crater.

Here’s one of several 3D images of different regions of lunar surface captured by TMC. By looking through 3D glasses, you get a grasp of the height of features shown here. More 3D anaglyph images are available on the ISRO site.

Chandrayaan-1 launched from India on Oct. 21, 2008 and began orbiting the moon Nov. 8.

Sources: NASA, ISRO,

January 15, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Apollo Rock Reveals Moon Had Molten Core

Harrison Schmidt during Apollo 17. Credit: NASA

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Back in the 1960’s and ’70’s when scientists claimed that the Moon rocks returned by the Apollo astronauts would keep researchers busy for decades, they weren’t kidding. Analysis on one of the rocks collected during the Apollo 17 mission has helped to solve a longstanding puzzle about the Moon. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) carried out the most detailed analysis ever of the oldest pristine rock from the Apollo collection. Magnetic traces recorded in the rock provide strong evidence that 4.2 billion years ago the moon had a liquid core with a dynamo, like Earth’s core today, that produced a strong magnetic field.

Until the Apollo Moon missions, many scientists were convinced the moon was born cold and stayed cold, never melting enough to form a liquid core. Apollo proved that there had been massive flows of lava on the moon’s surface, but the idea that it has, or ever had, a molten core remained controversial. “People have been vociferously debating this for 30 years,” said Ben Weiss, Assistant Professor of Planetary Sciences in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and senior author of a paper on the new finding being published in Science on Jan. 16.

Many of the rocks returned from the Moon had magnetic qualities, which was perplexing to scientists. How could Moon rocks be magnetic if the Moon had no magnetic core?

One rock in particular was compelling. The rock was collected on Apollo 17, the last Apollo mission to the moon, by Harrison “Jack” Schmidt, the only geologist ever to walk on the moon. “Many people think that it’s the most interesting lunar rock,” said Weiss.

“It is one of the oldest and most pristine samples known,” said graduate student Ian Garrick-Bethell, who was the lead author of the Science paper. “If that wasn’t enough, it is also perhaps the most beautiful lunar rock, displaying a mixture of bright green and milky-white crystals.”

The team studied faint magnetic traces in a small sample of the rock in great detail. Using a commercial rock magnetometer that was specially fitted with an automated robotic system to take many readings “allowed us to make an order of magnitude more measurements than previous studies of lunar samples,” Garrick-Bethell said. “This permitted us to study the magnetization of the rock in much greater detail than previously possible.”

And those data enabled them to rule out the other possible sources of the magnetic traces, such as magnetic fields briefly generated by huge impacts on the moon, which are very short-lived. But the evidence written in the lunar rock showed it must have remained in a magnetic environment for a long period of time — millions of years — and thus the field had to have come from a long-lasting magnetic dynamo.

That’s not a new idea, but it has been “one of the most controversial issues in lunar science,” Weiss said.
The magnetic field necessary to have magnetized this rock would have been about one-fiftieth as strong as Earth’s is today, Weiss said. “This is consistent with dynamo theory,” and also fits in with the prevailing theory that the moon was born when a Mars-sized body crashed into the Earth and blasted much of its crust into space, where it clumped together to form the moon.

The new finding underscores how much we still don’t know about our nearest neighbor in space, and which will soon be visited by humans once again under current NASA plans. “While humans have visited the moon six times, we have really only scratched the surface when it comes to our understanding of this world,” said Garick-Bethell.

Source: MIT

January 12, 2009April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Watch the New Moon Rover in Action

Small Pressurized Rover prototype. Credit: NASA

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The prototype for NASA’s new moon buggy will be part of the inauguration day parade on January 20 when Barack Obama becomes the new president of the US. The space agency is hoping the new president — and the rest of the viewing audience — will be impressed with the new concept for roving across the lunar surface. At the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., astronaut Mike Gerhardt will show off the rover’s capabilities of gliding smoothly, pirouetting and walking like a crab. Last Friday, NASA had a “test run” of the parade, showcasing the rover in a demonstration at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Watch a video from the Houston Chronicle to see the rover in action. Reportedly, the rover will bring up the rear of the parade and hopefully provide a lasting impression on the new president. Just what can this rover do?

In October 2008, NASA tested the rover and several other new concepts in a desert in Arizona (see related article.) The Small Pressurized Rover, has a module on top of a rover chassis where the crew can sit inside in a shirt-sleeves environment as they drive the vehicle. The wide windows provide a full view for the astronauts, making unobstructed observations easy from inside the rover. NASA is thinking the SPR could be the astronauts’ main mode of transportation on the Moon, and could also allow them the flexibility to work inside of it without the restrictions imposed by spacesuits.

The SPR during the October desert test. Credit: NASA

The adaptable vehicle features pivoting wheels that enable crab style movement to help the rover maneuver through difficult spots. Early concepts provide an exercise ergometer that allow crews to exercise while driving and simultaneously charge the vehicle’s batteries. The rover provides spacesuits, easily accessible from inside the rover whenever the astronauts need to get out of the rover.

Top speed is 15 mph, but engineers said it outpaced Hummers, trucks and Jeeps as it crossed lava flows in the Arizona desert.

According to the Houston Chronicle, at the end of the parade when the rover reaches President Barack Obama’s box, Gernhardt will stop the rover, and he and astronaut Rex Walheim, one of two people in white spacesuits attached to the rear of the buggy, will step away from the rover.

Then, carrying an American flag, he’ll stride several paces toward Obama, halt and salute the new president, ending the parade.

Said Walheim: “I hope he sees that NASA is looking forward, that we have some really exciting ideas on how to handle lunar exploration. I think he may get excited about it, too.”

Source: Houston Chronicle