There is never a second chance to be
Tiny Rover
Huge Ambitions
Carnegie Mellon University’s Iris is a 2kg rover ready to go to the Moon this winter. Our team is an internationally diverse group of students, from all different majors across the university, who have worked tirelessly over the last few years to create this miracle of microminiaturization. As the smallest and lightest rover ever to go to space, Iris will be the first American robot to go to and drive on the Moon.
Iris’s shoebox sized chassis and bottle cap wheels are made from carbon fiber, attributing to its lightweight design and another first for planetary robotics. Along with testing small, lightweight rover mobility on the Moon, Iris is collecting scientific images for geological sciences, as well as UWB RF ranging data for testing new relative localization techniques.
Carnegie Mellon University's Iris Lunar Rover is going to the Moon in 2023