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The Puli Lunar Water Snooper (PLWS) of Hungarian space technology company Puli Space Technologies operated on the Moon for almost 40 minutes, sending data in extreme cold temperatures of -55 degrees Celsius.
The Athena lunar probe, with the Hungarian instrument on board, landed near the Moon’s southern pole in the Mons Mouton mountain area, on March 6. The lunar probe crashed on landing and was only able to operate for about 12 hours.
The Hungarian water snooper provided data for 38 minutes.
The collaboration between Hungary’s Puli Space Technologies and Intuitive Machines, a private US space company, was the first attempt to map water ice concentrations on the lunar surface.
The NASA award-winning PLWS, weighing just 400 grams, was deployed on Intuitive Machines’ unique autonomous rocket-powered drone, the Micro Nova Hopper.
“One eye weeps, the other laughs,” says Tibor Pacher, founder of Puli Space Technologies. “Although Intuitive Machines’ second lunar mission (‘IM-2’) did not go according to plan – the Athena lunar probe unfortunately crashed on landing and was therefore only able to operate for a very limited and short period of time –
we are proud that during this time our water sniffer operated for almost 40 minutes in extreme cold, near -55 degrees Celsius, and sent data continuously.
Even though we could not take all the measurements we had planned, our little instrument still made history and we are already preparing for our next lunar mission,” he added.
Via MTI; Featured picture: Puli Space Technologies Facebook