4 Indian Experiments Are Going To The Moon On Their Very Own Rover!

When TeamIndus was announced as the only Indian team handpicked by Google to compete for the Google Lunar XPrize (GLXP), for a grand $20 million prize, the country was beyond proud. After all, it isn’t everyday when a privately funded team must successfully place a robot on the Moon that explores at least 500 meters, and transmit high-definition video and images back to Earth, before the other teams can. And if that wasn’t enough, these dynamic minds wanted a few more likeminded individuals to partake in their glory.

In an effort to encourage young scientists, TeamIndus introduced Lab2Moon, a special chance in 45 years to create an independent project that will fly to the Moon, in their rover. The experiment did have conditions; it had to aid the growth of humankind as a sustainable, multi-planetary species.

After receiving over 3000 entries, Phase 2 involved shortlisting the enormous amount of entries to a mere 25 entries. From entries that talked about enabling photosynthesis on the moon, to laser sintering lunar soil, the scientific experiments put forward by these young minds were indeed, incredible. The selected teams flew down to Bangalore to present their prototypes to an international jury, comprising of K Kasturirangan, former Chairman of ISRO; Alain Bensoussan, former President of CNES and former Chairman of Council, European Space Agency and Priyamvada Natarajan, Professor, Department of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University.

The winning experiment that the jury decided upon was the idea put forward by Team Space4Life who suggested using bacteria as a radiation shield. Protecting astronauts from space radiation and creating a self-sufficient environment for permanent bases or long stay travel is a necessity if human civilization wishes to expand beyond Earth. Astronauts of future interplanetary space missions will have to face the effects of Galactic Cosmic Radiation coming from deep space and the dangerous consequences of solar activity. The Radio-Shield is their experiment that will test the effectiveness and efficiency of an innovative radiation shield called BIOS.

BIOS (cyanoBacterial radiatIOn Shield) innovatively employs biomasses as radiation shielding material: it is composed of a colony of Cyanobacteria; primitive photosynthetic prokaryotes, that are able to resist extremely harsh conditions. Some species of Cyanobacteria display higher shielding capacity than lead even though they have lower densities. This would mean a high radiation resistant biomaterial shield, lighter at launch and cheaper than a lead shield, with a mere thickness of 5 cm!

The team members Altea Renata Maria Nemolato, Dario Pisanti and Mattia Barbarossa are from Naples, Italy and will now work with TeamIndus closely, for their experiment’s future space expedition. In a report by The Hindu Business Line, Priyamvada Natarajan explained why the team won over the others, “We looked at the exploitation of the opportunity, the relevance to the potential future of human establishment on the Moon, the feasibility, scalability and the demonstration that this is workable. The rigour, creativity of the idea and how radical it is in terms of not just how it related to previous work but, the vision was a case of passion combined with vision.”

After Team Space4Life, Team ZΩI from India came up second, with their experiment based on the possibility of photosynthesis on the moon, which will also fly to the moon with TeamIndus. The team playfully claims that no plants will be harmed in their experiment; as they’re using an extremophile cyanobacteria, known to survive hostile conditions.

Six other teams have also qualified to fly to the moon, of which three are from India — Team Callisto, TeamEARS and Team Kalpana. While Team Kalpana and Team Callisto’s experiments will focus on analysing lunar soil and dust, TeamEARS will tackle the possibility of building an electrostatic radiation shield for spacecrafts, and in the future, lunar habitats.