NASA Is Sending a Laser-Powered Drone Into the Moon's Hidden Caves

NASA has funded a robotics firm to develop a laser-powered drone capable of exploring lunar lava tubes. These underground caverns are being investigated as potential radiation-shielded shelters for future human missions to the Moon.
Somewhere beneath the Moon’s surface, a hole the size of two football fields drops 133 meters into absolute darkness. No sunlight. No GPS . No map. NASA has awarded an Austin robotics firm $175,000 to determine whether a hover drone — powered by a laser beam traveling through a single optical fiber — can descend into that void and return the first images of what may become humanity’s first off-world shelter.
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