American companies Lockheed Martin and General Motors will develop an electric lunar vehicle for NASA. It is planned to be used as part of the Artemis manned space program to explore the Earth’s satellite. The project was named Lunar Terrain Vehicle.

Image source: Lockheed Martin

During the current decade, the United States plans to send research robotic and manned missions to Earth’s satellite, as well as establish a habitable research base there. At a recent presentation, Lockheed Martin and General Motors announced that their development will be equipped with autonomous propulsion technology. In addition, the lunar vehicle under development will have “Significantly higher power reserve” compared to the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) used on the Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17 missions in the early 70s.

The two companies decided to collaborate after NASA approached the private sector with a proposal to develop two types of lunar vehicles for the Artemis lunar program: the open rover Lunar Terrain Vehicle (or LTV) and the larger enclosed mobile Lunar Surface Science Mobility System. The second will be a sealed multi-wheeled mobile research laboratory.

For LTV, the American aerospace agency NASA has put forward only a few key requirements. The lunar rover must be equipped with autonomous locomotion technologies and a machine vision system, controlled from the ground, to move in the harsh conditions of the lunar surface. In addition, the vehicle must be fully electric, capable of recharging itself, for example, using onboard solar panels or other systems, as well as using external infrastructure that is planned to be placed on the moon. In addition, the LTV should be able to carry two equipped astronauts, as well as any payload weighing up to 500 kg over a distance of at least two kilometers on a single battery charge. A lunar vehicle is required to have a robust structure that can withstand the harsh conditions of the moon’s south pole, where temperatures can range from +126 at the sun-point to -173 degrees Celsius during a moonlit night.

The Lunar Terrain Vehicle lunar car is at an early stage of development, so the companies have not yet begun to report its characteristics, expected weight and range. However, according to Jeff Ryder, vice president of General Motors (Jeff Ryder), it will be constructed from lightweight, durable and elastic materials. Lockheed Martin Vice President Kirk Shireman added that they want to create a device with a very long lifespan.

It should be added that both companies already have extensive experience in developing technologies that were used on the moon. Lockheed Martin and General Motors were among those who took part in the Apollo space program. General Motors has developed a body and wheels for the lunar vehicles used in the Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions. Lockheed Martin, in turn, took part in the development of the landing modules.

During the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, its commander, Eugene Cernan, who had previously flown to the Earth satellite as part of the Apollo 10 mission, but did not land on its surface, in total traveled in a lunar vehicle The LRV was more than 35 km away from the lunar landing module at a distance of more than 7 kilometers.

Eugene Cernan rides a lunar car through the bumpy lunar valley of the Taurus-Littrow

Lockheed Martin and General Motors note that their new electric lunar vehicle will be able to travel much longer than the Apollo lunar buggies and will allow astronauts “To comfortably explore the lunar surface, as well as visit places where there has never been a person.”