NASA has tapped three different companies to build concepts of lunar terrain vehicles (LTV) for its upcoming Artemis missions. The space agency will be working alongside Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab to develop the cars that astronauts could potentially ride around in on the Moon’s surface.
The Artemis mission was launched in 2017 in partnership with other space agencies and aims to build a permanent base on the Moon for humans to travel to. LTVs are unprecedented vehicles – compared to the rover, which was used in the 1971 Moon mission, LTVs will be capable of being driven without a human.
NASA says that the companies will build on its past rover development to engineer the LTVs with the first vehicle making its debut during the Artemis V mission in 2029. Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab will essentially be competing for the best LTV, which NASA will then buy from them at a maximum price of $4.6 billion USD.
“We look forward to the development of the Artemis generation lunar exploration vehicle to help us advance what we learn at the Moon,” director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston Vanessa Wyche said. “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.”
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