NASA to Fund Mission with Drones and Lasers to Explore Caves on the Moon

NASA will fund a project to explore the underground caverns of the Moon using drones and lasers, aiming to analyze whether these spaces can host future human bases. The initiative will be developed by Stone Aerospace, which will use a drone equipped with lasers to descend into the cavities and gather information about their structure. The collected data will be sent to a vehicle on the surface via fiber optic cables, which will also supply power to the drone. This study could become the first exploration of a cave outside of Earth. The chosen destination is a large cavity near Apollo 11, in Mare Tranquillitatis, which has dimensions similar to two football fields and is about 400 kilometers from the landing site of the Apollo 11 mission. Recent research revealed that this opening is the entrance to an extensive network of underground caves, some up to a hundred times larger than lava tubes on Earth. NASA allocated $175,000 for the preliminary research stage, part of the Innovative Advanced Concepts program, which distributed $3,200,000 among various proposals. Lunar caverns could offer natural protection against radiation and temperature changes, and were formed millions of years ago by lava flows. This technology could also be applied in future expeditions to other celestial bodies.

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