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Lockheed Martin and Basic Motors are partnering to develop a brand new sort of lunar car for NASA to make use of throughout its upcoming Artemis missions to the moon, the businesses introduced Wednesday.
“Floor mobility is important to allow and maintain long-term exploration of the lunar floor. These next-generation rovers will dramatically lengthen the vary of astronauts,” Lockheed Martin govt vp Rick Ambrose stated in an announcement.
Earlier this yr, NASA issued a discover to firms that it “requires a human-class rover that can lengthen the exploration vary of” astronauts throughout missions for the company’s Artemis program. The NASA program, introduced by former President Donald Trump’s administration and continued underneath President Joe Biden, consists of a number of missions to the moon’s orbit and floor within the years forward.
NASA’s request for a next-generation lunar car famous it ought to make the most of a wide range of cutting-edge applied sciences, together with electrical car methods, autonomous driving, and dangerous terrain capabilities.
GM has constructed such a car earlier than, as the corporate was the foremost subcontractor that helped Boeing create the lunar roving car that was utilized throughout three Apollo missions on the moon.
Apollo 16 astronaut John Younger drives NASA’s Lunar Roving Automobile (LRV) on the Descartes touchdown web site on the Moon on April 21, 1972.
Charles Duke | NASA
Whereas NASA’s earlier rover was able to reaching almost driving across the moon at almost six miles per hour, it traveled lower than 5 miles from the Apollo touchdown web site.
Lockheed Martin stated its next-generation lunar terrain car is “being designed to traverse considerably farther distances to assist the primary excursions of the moon’s south pole, the place it’s chilly and darkish with extra rugged terrain.”
—CNBC’s Mike Wayland contributed to this story.
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