Colmena

The Colmena project is a science and engineering experiment to design and deploy tiny autonomous robots to explore the surface of the Moon. It was created at the National Autonomous University of Mexico by the LINX Space Instrumentation Laboratory, at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the UNAM, and funded equally by grants from the Mexican Space Agency and the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies in Mexico. It is the first Latin American scientific instrument designed to explore the surface of the Moon.^[1]

The payload consists of five small, autonomous robots,^[2] each weighing less than 60 grams and measuring 12 centimeters in diameter, which are designed to be catapulted onto the lunar surface.^[1][3] Once the robots are on the surface, they locate each other and collaborate in a swarm to accomplish their science mission (thus the project name, which is Spanish for Beehive).^[4]

It was launched on 8 January 2024 on the maiden flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket as a co-hosted payload on the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission One to the Moon.^[1] However following a propellent issue with the lander, the mission was aborted and the lander along with Colmena burned up in the earth's atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean, with a last reported contact by the Canberra tracking station at 20:59 GMT.^[5]

References