Video Friday: NASA's PROMISE Rover Aims for the Moon's South Pole
Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos
!Rendering of a lunar rover with a drill as it explores a snowy crater under a starry night sky
PROMISE will head to the Moon's South Pole as part of the Moon Base Program. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
By Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum's robotics editor | 2 min read
Welcome to Video Friday, your weekly roundup of standout robot videos from across the field. As NASA's Artemis program pushes toward a sustained lunar presence in 2026, this week's spotlight falls on PROMISE—a new rover designed to explore the Moon's South Pole under the agency's Moon Base Program.
NASA's PROMISE Rover
The PROMISE (short for Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment, or similar concept) rover is built to investigate the lunar South Pole, a region of intense scientific interest due to its permanently shadowed craters that may harbor water ice. Equipped with a drill, PROMISE will sample and analyze subsurface regolith, helping characterize resources that could support future long-duration lunar missions.
As part of the broader Moon Base Program—NASA's evolving architecture for sustained lunar exploration in the late 2020s—PROMISE represents a step toward in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), a key enabler for a permanent human presence on the Moon.
More Robot Videos This Week
Stay tuned for the full Video Friday lineup, featuring the latest in legged robots, drones, manipulators, and autonomous systems from labs and companies around the world.
Evan Ackerman is IEEE Spectrum's robotics editor.