General Motors and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin said Wednesday they will develop a vehicle capable of carrying astronauts and equipment longer distances across the moon.
The announcement comes as NASA lays groundwork to return humans to the lunar surface.
It is the companies’ response to a request NASA put out last year, which asked members of the automotive industry to pitch ideas for lunar terrain vehicles, known as LTVs, that could travel faster and farther on the moon than the ones used during the Apollo program.
The space agency is looking for mobility systems that can be deployed as part of Artemis, a U.S.-led international program that has a goal of landing astronauts on the lunar south pole by the mid-2020s.
NASA has not awarded a contract to GM and Lockheed Martin for a lunar rover, but the companies are keeping that option open, company leaders said at a Wednesday media event.
“This partnership is really about getting ahead of NASA’s future procurements … and really looking at the commercial environment that’s going to be on the lunar surface and building this partnership in advance of that, so that we can lead the way in mobility on the moon,” said Lisa Callahan, the vice president of commercial civil space at Lockheed Martin.
NASA wants any new rovers to extend the range astronauts have to conduct scientific experiments on the moon. The agency has also expressed interest in a variety of mobility systems — such as electric or autonomous lunar rovers that can recharge, self-navigate or handle extreme environments.
The companies anticipate that NASA will put out an LTV request for proposal as soon as the third or fourth quarter of this year, said Jeff Ryder, the vice president of growth and strategy at GM Defense.
In its joint statement with Lockheed Martin, GM said it will incorporate autonomous technology into the LTVs. The current plan is to also make the LTV electric, said Alan Wexler, GM’s senior vice president of innovation and growth.
The LTV will carry an initial two astronauts with the potential to evolve to carry more.
Company leaders stressed the LTV is in the early stages, so not all technical specifications have been worked out. It will be composed of “very lightweight, very strong and resilient materials,” said Kirk Shireman, the vice president of Lunar Exploration Campaigns at Lockheed Martin, but added that material selection plans are still “in formulation.”
GM and Lockheed Martin’s LTV will be unpressurized — a key difference from other lunar rover projects such as the pressurized Lunar Cruiser being developed by Toyota Motor Co. and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
No stranger to working with NASA, Lockheed Martin is already the prime contractor working on Orion, a class of reusable space capsules that are another key part of Artemis.
And GM — which aided in the development of the chassis and wheels for the lunar rovers used during Apollo 15 through 17 — indicated it is aiming to fulfill NASA’s request for next-generation LTVs to be able to travel longer distances.
Apollo rovers traveled less than five miles from their landing sites. But a wider range of mobility is needed for Artemis, NASA says, because astronauts will be traversing the moon’s south pole — a colder region with rugged terrain.
