A ‘Hungarian dog’ fetches water from the moon

Don’t worry, it won’t be a real dog on the moon. Instead of our furry friends, a whole new space technology will be launched to visit the Moon in 2023. The device, developed by the Hungarian company Puli Space Technologies and named after the beloved Hungarian breed, is a device of water detection. His name is Puli Lunar Water Snooper, following the developers’ theme of Black Sheepdogs.

As hellomagyar.hu reported, the whole story began in 2020, with a competition organized by NASA for companies to develop miniature devices that could easily be used on the Moon. They named the competition “Honey, I shrunk the NASA payload”. The funny name is quite indicative: the project needed small, light and very portable devices. These are all key concepts in space travel. Out of 29 countries, 132 entries were made. These are all concepts of miniature scientific devices that can help monitor the lunar environment and explore resources.

But what exactly is this “dog”?

The Puli Lunar Water Snooper, also known as PLWS, is a 10x10x3.4 cm sized device. This rather portable little box is a water detector. It weighs only about 400 g, but it is able to detect hydrogen and volatile hydrogen-containing materials, such as ice. Nasa has already stated that there is a lot of ice at the poles of the Moon. This is the goal of this project, to find and use this water to help astronauts get supplies.

Puli Lunar Space Snooper, credit:pulispace.com

Puli Lunar Water Snooper came out on top in the first round of this competition in the summer of 2020, winning a grand prize worth USD 30,000. The next round of the competition was to prove to NASA that their project could be done in a year with a detailed plan. Of the 10 teams entered, this time, the PLWS finished in the always impressive second place. The development team had proven itself, and so, on the next mission, a PLWS will actually spy water on the Moon.

Now PLWS is preparing for its journey to the Moon where it will work under drastic conditions. His area of interest will be the “always shadowed” parts of the Moon where it is usually around -200°C.