NASA Unveils Artificial Moon : Cutting-Edge Lunar Lab for Exploration Research
NASA has unveiled its cutting-edge Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbed in California’s Silicon Valley.
The facility is designed to imitate the lunar environment, including ultra-realistic lighting and terrain.
The Regolith Testbed houses two massive indoor sandboxes filled with simulated lunar dust.
The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) team has tested the upgraded Regolith Testbed.
The facility has become a hub of research and experimentation, attracting scientists from NASA and the private sector.
The first sandbox is filled with eight tons of Johnson Space Center One simulant, the largest collection of its kind in the world.
The Regolith Testbed enables research that can be applied to other celestial bodies, including Mercury, asteroids, and Mars’ Phobos.
The polar regions of the Moon present new challenges in low-angle lighting and intense solar glare.
Researchers use hand tools to shape the dust in the sandbox, creating features similar to what astronauts and rovers might encounter on the Moon.
The lunar environment is compounded by the absence of an atmosphere and extreme cold, making it a formidable challenge for machinery and spacesuits.
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