Did you know that Amazon is all set to send Alexa to the moon?

We all know about Amazon’s cloud-based voice-driven personal assistant device Alexa and how it has become the much-needed friend of adults and youngsters. You just ask for it and she does it all for you: plays music, provides information, delivers news and weather reports, controls smart home features and even allows Amazon Prime members to order products on the site. Alexa is not only in our hones, she’s even in our cars and hospitals. Now, she is set all set to visit the moon.  

How is Amazon planning to send Alexa to the moon? 
In the first week of January, e-commerce giant Amazon announced that it is planning to send Alexa to the lunar orbit soon, in collaboration with another US aerospace firm Lockheed Martin. This initiative is part of NASA’s 2022 mission that includes the launch of an uncrewed test flight known as Artemis 1 Moon mission. It will test the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft around the Moon. 

Initial reports suggest that Alexa will travel to the lunar orbit as part of a technology payload called Callisto. It is supposed to assess how smart software technology could help astronauts who will fly to the moon in the future. Amazon officials further state that this mission is part of their ‘Alexa Everywhere’ campaign.  

How will Alexa function on the moon? 
Once successfully landed on the lunar orbit, Alexa is expected to tap into the spacecraft’s telemetry and report the status of Orion system apart from delivering news updates from earth to the crew, as per their request. 

Furthermore, Amazon plans to organise a “virtual crew experience” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, during which notable guests can interact with Alexa remotely. They have also planned to keep the Alexa users on earth updated about the progress of this uncrewed mission Artemis 1.  

What are the visible constraints for this mission? 
Although Amazon, NASA and Lockheed Martin are hopeful of the success of this mission, certain constraints have been taken into consideration. These include vibrations during the take-off of the Space Launch System, exposure to radiation from the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and an acoustic ambience from the adjacent metallic surfaces, resulting in a series of background noises from pumps and other machinery. The distance between the earth and the moon is also expected to provide serious latency forcing Alexa to depend vastly on Amazon’s Local Voice Control instead of in-device control.