NASA has shown off its fake moon. The space agency has unveiled an updated lab with ultra-realistic lighting and terrain to simulate lunar conditions.
The agency has now recreated the two major types of lunar surfaces that future robots, rovers, and astronauts will experience in the Moon's polar regions. The so-called Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbed houses at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley houses two large indoor “sandboxes” filled with tons of simulated lunar dust. With both testbeds, most areas on the Moon can be simulated with a high degree of accuracy.
NASA’s new Moon rover, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) team, has been able to use the Regolith Testbed to test how well the rover’s lighting systems and hazard avoidance cameras handle the very low-angle illumination it will experience while mapping the Moon’s South Pole.
