S. P. Hopper: First In-Situ Exploration of Lunar Polar Terrain

Intuitive Machines Mission - 2 (IM2) Nova-C lander is slated to land on the Spudis crater side of the Shackleton – de Gerlache connecting ridge (89.5°S, 222.0°E) in late 2022 or early 2023. The Nova-C carries three core payload elements: the NASA-funded Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), a 4G/LTE communications network developed by Nokia of America Corporation on the Nova-C lander, the Micro-Nova and a Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover developed by Lunar Outpost Inc., and Micro-Nova, a deployable hopper robot developed by Intuitive Machines. Here we summarize the capabilities of the Micro-Nova (named S.P. Hopper for this mission) and its goals and objectives