"Lunar 'Light Bender': Illuminating Artemis Astronauts with Robotic Assistance"

Maxar, a space technology company, is developing a project called Light Bender in collaboration with NASA's Langley Research Center to use autonomous mirrors to reflect sunlight and provide energy to solar-powered equipment in the shadowed regions of the moon's south pole. The goal is to support the Artemis program's mission of landing astronauts near the moon's south pole by 2025, where resources like water ice are abundant but sunlight is limited. The project aims to use robots to assemble and deploy reflectors that keep sunlight focused on solar panels, enabling energy production in permanently shadowed areas. The first terrestrial demonstration is scheduled for 2025.