NASA has given their Ames Research Center the tak of creating a fleet of small robot spacecraft to orbit the moon and collect data on its surface. This is in preperation for another moon landing in the next 15 years, which is all part of the recently created Constellation Program which has an end goal of getting humans to Mars.

The goal of the robots would be to learn about the Moon’s surface and search for possible traces of water or useful minerals that could be used for contruction on the Moon’s surface. The orbiting robots will also look for good landing locations for the astronauts. The mission cost will be about $70 million USD.