A mobile robot built by engineers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) will reach the Moon before NASA astronauts. The four-wheeled device, dubbed Iris, features a carbon-fiber composite body about the size of a shoebox and wheels that are designed to survive the harsh lunar environment.
When it launches sometime this summer, Iris will become the first university-built lunar rover to leave Earth and the first lunar vehicle not made by a national space agency. It will also be the first American robot to drive on the Moon.