A Robot to Mine the Moon
In a Brooklyn warehouse, Honeybee Robotics is developing a lunar excavator that may help us colonize the moon
IEEE Spectrum visits a warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Honeybee Robotics, a space technology company, is developing a next-generation rover to excavate and mine the lunar surface. The robot may be used in future NASA missions to retrieve soil samples. It may also help humans to colonize the moon one day.
Conventional digging machinery might be to clunky to operate on the moon. So Honeybee came up with a completely new approach to mining. Its robot uses gas to push lunar dirt into the rover’s storage compartment. The material could be used for construction of roads, or mined for oxygen. But first, Honeybee needs to test its prototype, using a massive vacuum chamber at the Brooklyn warehouse.
Erico Guizzo is the Director of Digital Innovation at IEEE Spectrum, and cofounder of the IEEE Robots Guide, an award-winning interactive site about robotics. He oversees the operation, integration, and new feature development for all digital properties and platforms, including the Spectrum website, newsletters, CMS, editorial workflow systems, and analytics and AI tools. An IEEE Member, he is an electrical engineer by training and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.