CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — NASA has selected three companies to work on lunar rover concepts that would be offered as a service for Artemis lunar landings and scientific activities.
NASA announced April 3 it picked teams led by Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab for its Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) Services contract. The contract covers work to design and develop rovers that would be used by astronauts on Artemis missions starting with Artemis 5 at the end of the decade. The rovers would be provided by the companies to NASA as a service, in much the same way the agency is procuring spacesuits and lunar landers.
While the primary purpose of the LTV will be to transport astronauts across the lunar surface, NASA expects to also teleoperate the rover, allowing it to perform scientific investigations when astronauts are not present. “Think of a hybrid of the Apollo-style lunar rover that was driven by our astronauts and an uncrewed mobile science platform,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, at a briefing to announce the contract selections.
This particular design will be great for short journeys, those in which the astronauts will be outside the habitat for a few hours. For journeys lasting several days, we’re gonna also need an enclosed rover design, essentially a pressurized RV.