Narrator: In one of the driest places on Earth,
a NASA robot is searching for water.
The Mojave Desert, in southern California, receives
very little rain and the dry environment is very
similar to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars.
However, there is enough underground moisture that
the Mojave is an excellent lunar
or Red Planet analog.
Also, since the locations and quantities of that
moisture are well-known to geologists, researchers
are able to ground truth science instruments
by comparing their measurements to the actual amounts.
The Mojave Volatiles Prospector, or MVP project,
is a test bed for scientists from NASA Ames
Research Center to develop the technologies
and procedures that will be needed to search
for water ice and other volatiles that might
be hidden under the surface of the Moon, Mars
or another planetary body.
The foundation of the MVP project is a 4-wheel-drive,
electric-powered robot, known as K-REX.
About the size of golf cart, K-REX is designed to
autonomously navigate rugged terrain, while
driving over obstacles as high as 12 inches
and slopes as steep as 30 degrees.
It has multiple cameras on-board, which are used by
the rover's control system to navigate between
waypoints and to provide real-time situational
awareness for the science team back at NASA Ames.
To search for water, K-REX carried two instruments
specifically selected for the MVP mission.
The first was a Neutron Spectrometer System,
known as NSS, that scans for underground hydrogen.
NSS measures changes in the energy of neutrons
that interact with hydrogen in the subsurface.
If there is no hydrogen, those changes are not detected.
The second instrument was the Near-Infrared Volatile
Spectrometer System, known as NIRVSS.
NIRVSS measures light reflections from soil samples and
was used to calculate the amount of soil moisture.
Data from the two instruments helped scientists
select locations where samples were collected
for analysis.
For science planning and mission operations,
the team used a software tool developed at Ames
called the Exploration Ground Data System or xGDS.
The MVP deployment was an opportunity to learn how
the web-based software tool works and where
improvements are needed in order to conduct a
high-tempo science mission with a rover
in a remote location.
Another goal of the MVP project was to answer the question
"How can NASA use a robot to prospect for resources on the
Moon in a very short timeframe?"
The Mojave Volatiles Prospector mission brought together
a rugged robotic rover, unique prospecting instruments,
a robust mission operations software package and
a dedicated support team for a remote, live field test.
The mission successfully demonstrated the concept of
"high-tempo" robotic science and the MVP team
stands ready to help develop an actual prospecting mission 
beyond Planet Earth.
(Electronic Sounds of Data) 
 (Musical Tones)
