What will astronauts use to drive across the Moon?

Tires that can withstand 300 degrees. Batteries that work in frigid temperatures. Robotic arms to perform detailed construction tasks. The ability to do a donut on the moon’s surface. All of these—except perhaps for the last one—are requirements for the next generation of lunar vehicles to accompany astronauts with NASA’s Artemis program to the Moon.

Artemis isn’t your parents’ (or grandparents’) Apollo program: Starting in 2026, NASA isn’t planning to merely visit the Moon, but to stay there and build a sustainable, permanent habitat on the possibly water-rich lunar south pole that will serve as a research outpost, an engineering hub, and the nexus of an off-world economy.

To save time, maximize their exploratory adventures, and boost their scientific output, NASA has decided that its future moonwalkers will get a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV)—the off-road car to rule them all.

Last month, the space agency announced that three consortiums—led by Intuitive Machines of Texas, Lunar Outpost of Colorado, and Venturi Astrolab of California—have been chosen to design these extraterrestrial speedsters. Over the next year or so, each will be assessed by NASA, which will choose one winner to the tune of a $4.6 billion contract.

Presently, the late-2026 Artemis III mission is set to return astronauts to the Moon. The plan is to deploy the winning LTV with the Artemis V crew. Which one will the astronauts be using to (among other things) road trip across the lunar surface?

Apollo to Artemis

The final three Apollo missions each had their own Lunar Roving Vehicle, an electric rover that expanded their search radius around their landers. “Your tools, your rocks, your camera, yourself. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry, the rover’s the way to do it,” says Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at the Washington University in St. Louis.

But they were single-use items. “It worked for them to have this small, light, disposable rover,” says Lara Kearney, NASA’s program manager for Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility at Johnson Space Center.

But times have changed. “What [NASA] is looking for now is a more of a long-term sustainable capability where they’ll probably return to set up facilities or bases somewhere around the south pole of the Moon,” says Pete McGrath, Chief Operating Officer of Intuitive Machines.

That means you need a rover (a colloquial term for a terrestrial space vehicle) that is durable, rechargeable, able to shift various payloads, conduct myriad scientific investigations, and even move autonomously—or be piloted remotely from Earth—when the astronauts aren’t even present. The hope is that the LTVs can not only continue to do science, but also build outposts and equipment, like communication arrays, in advance of arriving astronauts—granting the spacefaring humans more time to accomplish more complex scientific endeavors.

“It’s like taking the lunar moon buggy [from the Apollo era], and a Mars science rover, and combining those two things together. That’s really what we’re attempting to do here,” says Kearney.

Battling the extremes

NASA has a set of basic requirements that all three designs must meet. The vehicles need to be able to handle modest slopes and have a 6-mile range from the lander (or, eventually, the habitat) on a single battery charge. The vehicle and its solar-powered batteries must be able to survive for a few hours in some of the permanently shadowed regions of the south pole—areas of frigid cold and eternal darkness thought to contain caches of water ice, which can be used for hydration, to grow crops, and to make rocket fuel.

These three rovers will be unpressurized, meaning that astronauts will have to wear spacesuits while using them. And, ideally, instead of sending multiple rovers for every astronaut mission, the LTVs will have a 10-year operating life.

That’s easier said than done. The harsh day-night cycle means that “the tires will experience colder than liquid nitrogen temperatures and 100 degrees above boiling water,” says Jaret Matthews, founder and CEO of Astrolab.

You May Also Like

SCIENCE

Why go back to the moon? NASA’s Artemis program has even bigger ambitions

SCIENCE

'Snakes' on the moon? These helpers could soon join our lunar mission.

SCIENCE

'Lost' plans show Britain was preparing for a moon landing in 1968. What happened?

The batteries of electric vehicles sometimes struggle on Earth; on the occasionally frigid Moon, this problem is far more severe. Keeping the solar-powered LTV in warm, perpetual sunlight on the lunar south pole is possible if it can be commanded to drive about and chase the Sun. But a better option is to create batteries that can survive the darkness. “That is a very difficult technical problem that we have to solve,” says Justin Cyrus, founder and CEO of Lunar Outpost.

Then there’s the lunar soil: an abrasive, elusive material unlike desert sand. “It’s more like driving over fiberglass, and it sticks to everything,” says McGrath. Each LTV must resist succumbing to it—but if something does break down, the LTV must be able to repair itself or be speedily fixed by the astronauts.

“I don’t have a gas station or auto shop I can drop in to and repair it at,” McGrath adds. “You make it kind of like a pit stop at the Indy 500”—streamlined, quick, and effective.

Popping lunar wheelies

Despite their core similarities, all three LTVs have different a design ethos. And while the consortiums can’t reveal too much about their individual LTVs mid-competition, they have offered up some tantalizing hints.

Lunar Outpost—partnered with Lockheed Martin, General Motors, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, and MDA Space—are essentially making a cutting-edge hauler. “It’s a space truck. It’s really meant to maintain and build infrastructure at a large scale on the lunar surface,” says Cyrus. He explains that advanced battery technology will allow them to operate the LTV during the frigid lunar night, with or without astronauts present. And their LTV, with a suite of robotic arms, should be able to perform detailed construction and cargo transportation tasks.

Their workhorse has already been signed up to fly on several imminent lunar missions led by both commercial partners and other space agencies. And “we want this to be the backbone of the Artemis campaign,” says Cyrus.

Intuitive Machines is best known for being the company that, earlier this year, landed (albeit slightly bumpily) the Odysseus spacecraft on the lunar south pole—the first American spacecraft on the Moon since 1972. They are leveraging that invaluable experience, and that of their partners (including AVL, Boeing, Michelin, and Northrop Grumman) to build the Moon Reusable Autonomous Crewed Exploration Rover, or Moon RACER, LTV.

As the name implies, it’s an astronaut-centered LTV design that looks the most like a speedster. “Boeing also built the original Moon rover,” says McGrath. Their design is highly modular, he explains, meaning parts of it can be easily swapped out for others, by humans or (potentially) autonomously.

Teaming up with Axiom Space and Odyssey Space Research, Astrolab’s Flexible Logistics and EXploration, or FLEX, LTV looks a like a sleek, compact buggy. “It’s designed to be the most versatile rover ever created,” says Matthews, pointing to its highly modular architecture. They already have a full-scale terrestrial prototype, and a version of FLEX is already set to head to the Moon on a commercial SpaceX Starship mission, carrying with it 1.5 tons of customer instruments, experiments and other cargo. “That same core platform design is also the basis for our Lunar Terrain Vehicle design,” says Matthews.

Not just flags and footprints

We don’t know which of the three LTVs stands the best chance of being picked by NASA to be part of the Artemis program. But we do know that the winner won’t be alone for long: By the time of the Artemis VII mission, it’s hoped that Japan’s space agency (JAXA) will have finished building their own rover. And this one will be pressurized, meaning astronauts will be inside, without a spacesuit, zipping about in a manner not dissimilar to how explorers use robotic submersibles to investigate the seafloor.

This rover, which is required to travel for at least 12 miles on a single charge, will be able to keep astronauts accommodated for up to 30 days, making it more of a long-range reconnaissance vehicle. “That’s a legitimate game-changer,” says Byrne. “You could live in this thing. You’re no longer limited by the consumables in your suit.” And if the astronauts need to suit up to explore on foot, they can.

After the Apollo program ended, it was difficult to picture a human outpost on our lunar neighbor. But “the whole premise of Artemis is to have a sustained presence on the Moon. Not just flags and footprints—but to go back and stay,” says Matthews. And announcements for lunar vehicle tenders make this possibility feel considerably more tangible. It’s not difficult to picture all four rovers—used by various space agencies and spaceflight companies alike —scooting about on the lunar south pole.

“This is how we make space sustainable,” says Cyrus. “This is how we get humanity living and working on other planetary bodies.”