NASA has selected Firefly Aerospace as the lander and rover provider to deliver UCF’s Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) payload to the Moon’s Gruithuisen Domes to investigate how these mysterious silica-rich volcanic features formed.

Over a 10-Earth-day period, the multi-instrument payload built by BAE Systems and Arizona State University (ASU) will gather data on the lunar regolith to understand how it may be used as a resource in future exploration of the lunar surface.

Firefly Aerospace is one of the American vendors NASA is partnering with to deliver payloads to the lunar surface through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. These companies are eligible to bid on NASA contracts, allowing for swift delivery and advanced scientific research and exploration.

“The CLPS initiative carries out U.S. scientific and technical studies on the surface of the Moon by robot explorers,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration and lead of NASA’s Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office in a press release. “As NASA prepares for future human exploration of the Moon, the CLPS initiative continues to support a growing lunar economy with American companies. Understanding the formation of the Gruithuisen Domes, as well as the ancient lava flows surrounding the landing site, will help the U.S. answer important questions about the lunar surface.”

Firefly was awarded its fourth task order worth $179 million to deliver six experiments, including Lunar-VISE, to the Gruithuisen Domes on the near side of the Moon in 2028.

Similar silicic volcanic domes on Earth are formed due to properties not observed on the Moon, including plate tectonics and oceans, leaving lunar scientists puzzled on how these mysterious domes formed. The Lunar-VISE science team will take what is learned at the Gruithuisen Domes and what is already known from other silicic volcanic spots on the Moon to reconstruct the history of its evolution and volcanism.

“We are beginning to have actual hardware and are building our instruments, and now we know how we will get them deployed on the lunar surface and what our rover will look like,” says Lunar-VISE’s co-investigator Jessica Sunshine, a professor of astronomy and geology at the University of Maryland. “What started as a concept and then figures in a proposal is now amazingly really happening. While the project has a lot of work to do, particularly as we integrate with Firefly, this marks a new exciting phase that gets us tantalizingly close to going from paper to the Moon.”

In the upcoming year, the Lunar-VISE team anticipates the final check, or the System Integration and Acceptance Reviews (SIR), in August to ensure all components are suitable  and safe for intended operations.

“I’m very proud of our Lunar-VISE team in developing, building, and testing our payload instruments and getting us ready for integration onto Firefly’s Ghost lunar lander and rover,” says Principal Investigator Kerri Donaldson Hanna, an associate professor in UCF’s Department of Physics. “The Lunar-VISE team is excited to work with Firefly to plan our science and exploration operations at the Gruithuisen Domes in 2028.”