NASA shows off stunning new Moon lander concept
As NASA gets ready to return to the Moon in 2024, the space agency is working on new designs for a lunar lander, including a futuristic design it shared on Monday. NASA showed off concept art of a lander that will use "top-tier technology" in order to not only land on Earth's celestial satellite, but collect data from it as well. One recent study showed that a "mid-sized" lander would have a rover go to the polar regions of the Moon, NASA said in a release on its website. “This lander was designed with simplicity in mind to deliver a 300 kilogram rover to a lunar pole," said Logan Kennedy, the project's lead systems engineer, in the release. "We used single string systems, minimal mechanisms and existing technology to reduce complexity, though advancements in precision landing were planned to avoid hazards and to benefit rover operations. We keep the rover alive through transit and landing so it can go do its job.” According to a technical