Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) is a robotic NASA experiment that is designed to search for water ice on the Moon at a permanently shadowed location near Shackleton Crater, close to the lunar south pole. The 36-kilogram (80 lb) PRIME-1 payload is scheduled for launch on a Falcon 9 in late 2024[1] as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program on the Nova-C IM-2 mission.[2]
If successfully deployed, PRIME-1 will be the first attempt to show the feasibility of efforts on the lunar surface "to generate products with local materials," a process formally termed as in situ resource utilization (ISRU). Additionally, this will be NASA's first attempt to robotically sample and analyze lunar ice below the surface. PRIME-1 is composed of two components, both of which will be mounted to a commercial lunar lander:
A version of TRIDENT and MSolo will be used on NASA's VIPER rover in the search for water ice.[4]
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