MOON — NASA officials stated on Tuesday that they are considering sending the full-scale engineering model of the Perseverance rover, nicknamed "Promise," to the Moon. Currently housed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, Promise would become part of the agency's lunar base initiative.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman elaborated on the proposal during a monthly update regarding the agency's plans for a Moon base. "We are thinking very hard right now about sending Promise to the Moon," Isaacman said. He noted that JPL engineers indicated Promise could be modified to function on the Moon.

The rover, which has a mass of about 1 ton, was not designed for a separate launch. It currently serves as a testbed, where commands are often tested in the "Mars yard" at the California laboratory before being sent to the Perseverance rover on Mars. "It makes sense, early on, when we've got a problem that we might want to test it out here before we upload it to Mars," Isaacman said.

NASA official Carlos García-Galán, who leads the Moon base initiative, discussed the advantages of using Promise with a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG). NASA has an MMRTG available. "For Moon-based objectives, having a nuclear RTG on it allows us to go anywhere we want, regardless of the illumination," García-Galán said. He explained that a nuclear RTG would allow the rover to operate anywhere on the Moon, regardless of solar illumination. "Surviving the lunar night is going to be one of the bigger challenges with this capability, we wouldn't have to worry about that," García-Galán added. NASA's other rovers predominantly rely on solar power, while Perseverance, deployed to Mars in July 2020, uses an MMRTG.

The rover's size suggests it would likely require delivery by Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander or SpaceX's Starship. NASA plans to adjust the scientific instruments aboard the vehicle for lunar operations. Over a decade ago, NASA examined questions concerning a lunar rover with an "Endurance" rover proposal that would have traversed nearly 2,000 km across the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the Moon. The "Endurance" rover was not built.

NASA is assessing the feasibility of integrating Promise into its lunar fleet. Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for The Planetary Society, offered a perspective on the proposal. "It's quite symbolic, in a way, the harvesting up what's left of the Mars program and shipping it to the Moon," Dreier said.