The LuSEE-Night pathfinder is scheduled to launch a few years from now.
Surviving there takes a feat of engineering. Though sometimes mislabeled"the dark side" of the moon, the part of Earth's natural satellite that faces away from us in the night sky does in fact have a day/night cycle, each phase of which lasts about 14 Earth days. Temperatures on the far side of the moon fluctuate between around 250 and minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit .
So LuSEE-Night will have to be designed to withstand two weeks of intensely unforgiving, non-stop lunar-day sun, as well as remain powered through two weeks of rigidly cold darkness — and do this over and over again. The mission design lifetime on the lunar surface is two years. "In addition to the significant potential science return, demonstration of the LuSEE-Night lunar night survival technology is critical to performing long-term, high-priority science investigations from the lunar surface," Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in the same statement.
When it's ready, LuSEE-Night will launch on a future commercial lunar payload services mission, an initiative from NASA that, according the space agency's website,"allows rapid acquisition of lunar delivery services from American companies for payloads that advance capabilities for science, exploration or commercial development of the moon."
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