General Motors and Lockheed Martin Corp team up for NASA's lunar rover venture

Lockheed Martin and General Motors Co. on Wednesday announced that they are “teaming up” to develop NASA’s next generation of lunar rovers that will transport astronauts at “farther distances” on the surface of the Moon. In an official press release, the two firms said that the collaboration is aimed to fundamentally evolve and expand humanity’s deep-space exploration footprint. “Only 5 percent of the Moon’s surface has been explored by the human race,” Lockheed Martin explained, adding that to reach the other 95 percent Lockheed Martin and General Motors have joined efforts to design futuristic vehicles that explore vast distances under NASA’s Artemis program. “Unlike Apollo days when the rovers only traveled four miles from the landing site,” said Lockheed.

The new lunar rovers will don mobility which will be a huge step – or a giant leap – toward enabling and sustaining long-term exploration of the moon. This, in turn, will help NASA better understand the fundamental planetary processes underlying the Earth’s solar system. The new lunar rovers will not only be well-equipped to cover vast, expansive distances on the lunar surface, but they will also be “driver optional”. This implies, that the two firms will design the autonomous, self-driving systems that would enable the moon vehicles to operate with or without humans on board. This will pave a way for the future human missions, commercial payload services and enhanced scientific utility, Lockheed Martin informed. 

“These next-generation rover concepts will dramatically extend the exploration range of astronauts as they perform high-priority science investigation on the Moon that will ultimately impact humanity’s understanding of our place in the solar system,” said Rick Ambrose, executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Space.

Equipped to explore 'rugged terrain'

Lockheed Martin-GM rovers would be able to preposition themselves autonomously near a NASA-designated landing site prior to the astronauts’ arrival. The astronauts will also have the ability to task the rover from the Human Landing System or the orbiting lunar Gateway to conduct science operations without a human driver. "This enables NASA to fit more science into a smaller amount of time, and allows us to uncover the critical information that the other 95 percent of the lunar surface may hold,” according to GM and Lockheed Martin. 

New lunar rovers will be equipped to drive on the rugged terrain in the dark and explore some of the coldest lunar regions. It will also be designed to survive and even operate in the two-week-long night that sees temperatures of down to -280 degrees Fahrenheit, and day-time temperatures of 260 Fahrenheit.  Lockheed Martin has already built some of the advanced deep space robotic spacecraft that have led missions on the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, asteroids, comets and other destinations. 

“The biggest difference is when you design for the Moon and for space applications, the force of gravity is different and has to be taken into account,” Madhu Raghavan, Global Research & Development Group Manager at GM said in the release. “There are extreme temperature swings, and the radiation in space becomes a challenge in terms of systems design. You’re also operating in a vacuum and designing your systems to withstand the shock of the actual launch.”