Gracie, but have you seen that cute? And above all what does it do? Or rather what will do soon. No, it’s not an animal, it’s a robot. No, it is not a sexy robot, it is the IM-2 (intuitive machine) mission explorer robot supported by NASA which will leave for the moon on February 26 (together with other rover and robots with different characteristics) on a spacex rocket . Also to beat China on time, who will have an jumper too, next year. He will land (or will he extend?) With the Lander Athena and his mission is to explore a plateau 160 kilometers from the south lunar pole, where there is a lot of water ice, and being able to analyze it.
But why do you skip gracie? To move, using engines, and fly over obstacles to reach scientifically interesting places otherwise inaccessible. First jump 20 meters, second jump 50 meters, and with the third leap, of 100 meters, it will enter the H, 500 meters from Athena. The data collected will be transmitted with a 4G/LTE communication system developed by Nokia (Oh, Nokia returns in vogue, perhaps the first lunar settlers will use Nokia 3310).
Gracie cost 38 million euros and weighs 35 kilograms, but on the moon it will weigh just under six kilos, that’s why it doesn’t need a lot of propulsion power to jump. Think of the astronauts of the Apollo missions: their space suit, with vital support system and everything else, weighed almost one hundred and twenty kilos, but they moved by jumping happy (happy because astronauts, I would go with the hell, although I could stop starting every day the diet and weigh me by seeing me 16 kilos).
Finally, why is it called Gracie, the jumper robot? It is a tribute to Grace Hopper, American IT and military military and Military Pioneer (and Hop is jumping, of course). There was still no woman on the moon but the most enterprising robots begin to become females.