CMU's rover set for important, time-sensitive mission aboard Astrobotic's lunar lander
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The countdown is on, with history being made right here in Pittsburgh as Astrobotic's lunar lander finally goes to the moon with Carnegie Mellon's rover on board.
Nikolai Stefanov is anxiously waiting for Monday morning when he watches the rover that he and hundreds of students and staff at Carnegie Mellon worked on making its trip to space.
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"It hasn't hit me yet," Stefanov said.
Iris will be the first university-developed, student-led rover and the first American lunar robotic rover on the moon. The fifth-year student studying physics and computer science is a mission control lead for the rover project. He's been a part of it for four years.
"I'm incredibly honored and humbled to be a part of this whole thing, be a part of this historic milestone," Stefanov said.
The rover, called Iris, will be on Astrobotic's first lunar lander, named Peregrine, which will launch aboard a rocket by United Launch Alliance at 2:18 a.m. from Cape Canaveral.
It's a long time coming, after more than a decade of work for both the university and the Pittsburgh start-up and delays in May and December.
The lander is a spacecraft that delivers science instruments to the moon for international space agencies, NASA, and customers like the university. Once it's on its way, it will take at least 30 days for Peregrine to land on Feb. 23 and deploy what's inside. This is when the real work starts for Stefanov and his team.
"We have 20-60 hours to take that golden opportunity that we've been given and turn it into something that's hopefully helpful for any other future missions," Stefanov said.
They'll be racing the clock before the battery dies, working from mission control at the university to take photos and gather science to improve the future of space research.
"We get to set a precedent of sorts," Stefanov said. "We get to really firmly establish that, you know, space is for everyone."
When it comes to an end, they hope Iris will remain on the surface of the moon for the rest of time.
"We were debating sending commands to drive it as far away from the lander as possible to send it off in sort of a final blaze of glory," Stefanov said.
You can watch the launch at 2:18 a.m. Monday on the live stream.
More details will be released in the future on how to watch Peregrine land on the moon on Feb. 23.