OTTAWA, Canada — I found a portal to the moon behind an ordinary office door.
The “Max” lunar rover waits in a huge black-painted facility, ready to explore a simulation moon landscape that sits next to the cubicle-filled offices of local company Mission Control. Surrounding the prototype rover is 4,000 square feet (370 square meters) of sand, providing a gigantic playground of landscape rocks, garden rocks and numerous “craters”.
Lighting the scene is a single lamp high on the wall, casting a single harsh shadow. I turn away from the light and see my silhouette thrown away; for a moment I am transported by the iconic images and videos of the 1960s and 1970s taken by the Apollo astronauts.
“Appearance is important; lighting is extremely critical,” said Mission Control space and education manager Adam Deslauriers. He admitted that the “sun” is a little darker than in real life, because the alternative would be “to spend billions of dollars and have dangerous lamps” see.
Related: See the moon like Apollo astronauts with these epic panoramic photos
Mission Control Builds artificial intelligence systems to operate through the solar system For Earth observation, Satellite maintenance and other applications.
Already its software is on its way to the moon in the United Arab Emirates’ Rover Rashidthat should earth in april aboard a lander built and operated by Tokyo-based ispace. The cameras on board Max were tested for the Rashid mission, Deslauriers said, and Mission Control also trained the models for machine learning in Ottawa.
Mission Control asked another Canadian company to provide super-reliable rovers, to allow engineers in Ottawa to focus on their software specialty. The size of a chair from Clearpath Robotics Husky rovers (opens in a new tab) do the trick, says Deslauriers; the rover nicknames “Max” and “Ruby” come from a popular Canadian children’s animated show (opens in a new tab) based on a series of books by Rosemary Wells.
Because rovers are so durable and can be designed for different riding experiences, other benefits likely follow. For example, novice drivers like myself (and dozens of kids) were allowed to drive these rovers as part of Mission Control’s mandate to do outreach. “When we did this lab, it was a conscious effort to get reliable, bulletproof rovers, and Clearpath was awesome,” Deslauriers added.
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Mission Control’s lunar focus isn’t accidental. NASA has numerous contracts under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program for companies to send small rovers, landers and other payloads to the Moon. This is because the agency wants to bring private infrastructure to support the NASA-led multinational Artemis Missionswhich could land astronauts near the lunar south pole as early as 2025.
The Canadian Space Agency has its own plans, such as the Lunar Exploration Acceleration Program (LEAP), to bring Canadian technology to the surface of the moon soon. This country is also betting heavily on lunar exploration, working with MDA to develop a new robotic Canadarm3 to maintain NASA bridge lunar space station.
This spring, Canada’s commitment will give the country a prestigious opportunity. One of Canada’s four active astronauts will take place aboard the lunar flyby Artemis 2 mission in 2024, alongside NASA colleagues and potentially, a japan astronaut Also.
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In a conference room, I eagerly take the wheel from Max. We activate the software’s “hazard” feature, which brings a yellow and red glow to otherwise hard-to-see obstacles in the gray landscape. I carefully hover the mouse over a half-circle on the screen to make Max move.
By moving the mouse forward, I drag the rover a few centimeters. A left or right shift allows me to spin in slow “doughnuts”. Within moments, this space player finds herself happily exploring the landscape. With black painted walls and sand under the wheels, the ride feels like the real thing.
They made this course deliberately simple for me. There’s no two-second delay to my movements like there would be when remotely driving a real moon rover. The rocks are generously spaced and therefore easy to avoid. I quickly fall into zen, experiencing my own form of “slow television” as Max spins around for me (creating leads that will need to be raked later; I tell the rep helping me to thank these employees after my departure.)
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Late at night, I think back to that moment when I first entered Mission Control’s lunar portal. The scene filled me with a calm that I have only experienced a few times in my life: entering the circle of Stonehenge, for example, or standing in the British Museum reading the birthday message signature (opens in a new tab) probably written by a Romano-British woman 2,000 years ago.
I’m not the only one having that feeling during my mock moonwalk, Deslauriers said. “It captures people’s imagination. When we have visitors, it’s easier for them to remember us… ‘Mission Control, what was that? Okay, the one with the moon.’ Not just, ‘The guys with the computers and the desks.'”
I will also remember my lunar experience. I felt a connection with the Apollo astronauts of the past, as well as those who will touch the moon in the future. We are all explorers of time, space and our communities. I can’t wait to see what wonders will be uncovered as we rake our gloved hands through the lunar regolith once more.
Elizabeth Howell is co-author of “Why am I taller (opens in a new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in a new tab). Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) Or Facebook (opens in a new tab).