By Sheena Carroll, Pittsburgh Technology Council
The COLMENA Project is Mexico’s first lunar exploration mission. It is headed by the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/National Autonomous University of Mexico) and accompanied by the Foreign Ministry, the Mexican Space Agency (AEM) and the state of Hidalgo.
Gustavo Medina, the head of LINX at the UNAM Institute of Nuclear Sciences (ICN), said that COLMENA is part of the first stage of a space
The mission calls for the robots to act autonomously and, taking nature as an example, demonstrate that they can coordinate and be space explorers and miners. Their electronics will be less than two centimeters from the lunar regolith on the Moon's surface, which could be quite the challenge to navigate.
COLMENA seeks to show how Mexican engineering and space tech is on par with the best in the world and to inspire future lunar initiatives.
The team behind Iris is an internationally diverse group of more than 200 students, from a variety of majors across CMU – meaning that Iris is also poised to be the first student-developed craft to land on the Moon! The rover is a culmination of three years of hard work and rigorous testing to ensure its survival in the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space.
Iris isn’t the university’s only payload aboard Peregrine: the even smaller (at only 9oz) MoonArk can best be described as a miniature museum. It is an intricate time capsule designed to broadly represent our planet’s arts, humanities, science and tech. This massive interdisciplinary project involves 18 universities and organizations, as well as about 250 contributing artists, designers, educators, scientists, choreographers, poets, writers, musicians, engineers and fabricators. The MoonArk contains a wide range of artifacts, including goat DNA, samples of music and poetry, miniature murals, Hopi corn and dried human blood. The art contained in the capsule explores Earth’s relationship with the Moon as an artistic muse throughout history.
There are actually two MoonArks – one aboard Peregrine and another that was recently accepted to the permanent art collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The space-bound MoonArk is anticipated to survive for hundreds of years for future generations to discover.
Peregrine is packed with payloads from around the world, ranging from Carnegie Mellon University’s Iris Lunar Rover to a token from BitMEX in the Seychelles containing 1 Bitcoin. But the lander will also contain mementos from tens of thousands of individuals within the confines of DHL’s MoonBox. This small box contains 28 capsules – miniature payloads bought by individuals and groups in six countries.
Here are some highlights!
HEINZ HISTORY CENTER
THE LUNAR CODEX
u/Valphon
u/Valphon ordered a MoonBox capsule for a personal project and ended up with more leftover storage on their SD cards than anticipated, so they invited strangers on Reddit to submit their own mementos to the Moon! The post hit over 15,000 comments, with thousands of users submitting personal messages, hex strings, YouTube links, photos of pets and departed loved ones, music, infamous copypasta and the entire Bee Movie script.
ASTRO LIZ LAB