PITTSBURGH — The Carnegie Mellon students who operated a rover in space are getting another chance at history. They’re hoping this second time is the charm to get their work on the moon for decades to come.
When Pittsburgh-based Astrobotics launched its Peregrine Lunar Lander in January 2024, a rover called Iris was on board. Carnegie Mellon students spent 10 years creating it by using phone parts and used materials.
While Peregrine was in space, Astrobotics turned on the rover and let the students operate while in space. But the excitement was short-lived. Peregrine had fuel issues, and it was intentionally crashed into the Pacific Ocean, just 10 days into the mission, short of the moon.
It was understandably a disappointment for the CMU students, but not entirely.
“We got to go to space. We proved students can command and build a rover,” said Iris science lead and CMU student Zach Muraskin.
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And now they’re getting a second chance to reach the moon. This time it’s in a different way and size. The team got space aboard Astrobotics’ Griffin Lander, which is set to launch to the south pole of the moon later this year.
“We got money together to buy room for a stack of plaques, commemorating Iris and all the hard work that went into it,” said Iris Chief Engineer Connor Colombo. “We also have images that tell our story, and additionally, we have a small cutout of the wheel of Iris in the shape of Iris.”
Channel 11 was there as the team prepared the payload — the exact item going on the lander. All the data is embedded in a little package, about the size of a quarter.
“We also had some other chips that we put in there, which have photographs and messages from the team and from alumni,” Muraskin said.
They also included the messages they sent to Iris while it was in space. Colombo’s message was the second-to-last one sent, but possibly the most impactful.
“The message I sent was a proposal to my long-time fiancée asking her, ‘Will you marry me?’” Colombo said, smiling.
It was another success. The two got married this summer. Their proposal, or the data from it, will now outlive them on the moon.
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Right now, Colombo, who now works at Astrobotics, said they’re still learning from Iris and the mission.
“The mission kind of actually didn’t conclude last January,” Colombo said. “It concluded in many ways last October when we got to present a series of papers at the International Astronaut Conference containing all of the lessons we’ve learned both in managing a program and getting something to space.”
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And many of the students involved, like Colombo, are using that knowledge in their careers.
“We have folks working in the space industry. We have folks working on those graduate degrees, taking their ideas into business, the private sector, the public sector, everything,” added Muraskin.
These trailblazers know their futures are bright, and the lessons learned from Iris are infinite, to the moon and beyond.
“We have this opportunity to make a mark on not just the moon, but a little bit, just a small little part of a much larger grander history,” Muraskin said. “It’s a very exciting endeavor to be a part of.”
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“Everyone had different reasons for doing Iris, but a lot of it was the idea to create a legacy, either a legacy at CMU, a legacy in space, or your own legacy,” Colombo said. “For me personally, in a very self-serving way, this helps create a legacy that lasts on the moon, something that outlasts us.”
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