Of course, before the Red Rover can leave its tread marks on the lunar soil, it has to get there. Astrobotic’s plan is to buy space on a commercial satellite-launching rocket for its payload—the rover and the lander. The lander will use retro-rockets to decelerate and guide its descent.

This is where Raytheon comes in. The craft’s landing system is based on missile technologies in the company’s arsenal. One is a propulsion system that guides missiles to intercept enemy aircraft. The other is a navigation technology used on cruise missiles. The landing system will kick in just 60 seconds before touchdown, continuously taking images of the lunar surface, comparing them with a reference map, and propelling the lander toward the exact target point.

Team members are now piecing the parts together into a mission plan, which calls for landing a few kilometers from the Apollo 11 site. The researchers will have two weeks to explore the area and send back images. After that, the sun will set and temperatures will plunge to –170 C, at which point electronic components will rip apart, and the rover will die quietly in the vastness of the Sea of Tranquility.

Back at the High Bay, Finman is checking the rover’s computers and cameras for a new round of field tests. He toggles buttons on a control panel. Motors whir and the cameras tilt up and down. They turn to the left, smoothly at first, then with a quick jerk, and then smoothly again before they stop. A gear tooth is broken.

Finman says there’s no need to fix it. A new rover prototype is already taking shape on a nearby worktable. He’s confident it will soon evolve into the hardy little robot that will get to the moon and send back beautiful pictures. It will all come together in the end. It’s only rocket science.

For more articles, go to Special Report: Why Mars? Why Now?

To Probe Further

For more, view the slide show, "A Team of Engineers, a Hardy Robot, the Moon"