Lunar drill close-up

Close-up of Prospect's robotic drill set to fly to the Moon’s South Polar region in search of volatiles, such as water ice.

Prospect is a suite of instruments that will drill up to at least one metre depth beneath the lunar surface, extract samples, and process them in a mini lab. The combination of robotic drill and sample analysis package is designed to identify volatiles trapped beneath the surface at extremely cold temperatures down to –150 °C.

The robotic drill, called ProSEED, features a multispectral imager and a permittivity sensor to support the remote detection and analysis of volatiles, as well as the mineralogy of the regolith at the landing site.

Prospect is developed for ESA by a broad industrial team with Leonardo in Italy as prime contractor and technical lead of the ProSEED drill.

Prospect stands for Package for Resource Observation and In-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Characterisation and Testing.