US area company picks Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab to create designs for lunar rover.
NASA has awarded contracts to 3 firms to develop automobiles for the primary crewed missions to the Moon in additional than 5 a long time.
Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab – primarily based in Texas, Colorado and California, respectively – have been chosen to create designs for the lunar rover beneath a contract price as much as $4.6bn, NASA mentioned on Wednesday.
NASA plans to choose one of many firms to hold out a take a look at run for his or her Lunar Terrain Car earlier than the arrival of the crew for the Artemis 5 mission scheduled for 2029.
The US area company mentioned the successful bid will probably be “able to handle the extreme conditions at the Moon’s south pole” and “feature advanced technologies for power management, autonomous driving, and state-of-the-art communications and navigation systems.”
“We look forward to the development of the Artemis generation lunar exploration vehicle to help us advance what we learn at the Moon,” Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Area Middle in Houston, mentioned in a press release.
“This vehicle will greatly increase our astronauts’ ability to explore and conduct science on the lunar surface while also serving as a science platform between crewed missions.”
Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA’s Exploration Programs Improvement Mission Directorate, mentioned the rover would enable astronauts to “travel to locations we might not otherwise be able to reach on foot, increasing our ability to explore and make new scientific discoveries.”
“With the Artemis crewed missions, and during remote operations when there is not a crew on the surface, we are enabling science and discovery on the Moon year around,” he mentioned.
The Artemis missions, named after the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, purpose to return people to the Moon for the primary time since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Underneath the programme, NASA plans to ascertain the primary long-term presence on the Moon and lay the groundwork for future missions to Mars.
Artemis 3, the primary crewed mission, is scheduled to land in 2026.