There NASA he will have a few options when he decides to select his next one new lunar buggy.
The aerospace giant Northrop Grumman announced last Tuesday (November 16) that he is leading a private team that is planning a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) with crew for potential use by NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s.
“Together with our teammates, we will provide NASA with an agile and cost-effective design to greatly enhance human and robotic exploration of the lunar surface to further enable a sustainable human presence on the moon and ultimately Mars.”
stated in a note Steve Krein, vice president of civil and commercial space in Northrop Grumman’s division of tactical space systems.
These teammates are AVL, who develop, simulate and test thrusters and other vehicle systems; the tire manufacturer Michelin; Lunar Outpost, which is developing robotic rovers and other lunar exploration technologies; and Intuitive Machines, whose Nova-D lander would deliver the LTV to lunar service.
Northrop Grumman and his partners are responding to a call from NASA, which last year asked the space industry for ideas on developing a manned, unpressurized LTV for use near the moon’s south pole. The agency plans to build an “Artemis base camp” in this region, which is thought to house a lot of water ice.
At the end of August this year, NASA asked for further advice on the electric LTV, which will have to operate for at least 10 years on the lunar surface.
“Most people do a lot of research before buying a car and we are doing extensive research for a modern spacecraft that will be supplied by the industry.
As we plan long-term exploration of the moon, the LTV will not be your grandfather’s lunar buggy used on the Apollo missions. “
Nathan Howard, project manager for LTV at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in an Aug. 31 statement.
How work is progressing on the new lunar buggy
It is currently unclear whether NASA will purchase the LTV outright or whether its developers will provide its use as a commercial service. This is one of the details the agency is trying to iron out at this information gathering stage.
The team led by Northrop Grumman is not the only private group to develop an Artemis LTV. In May, Lockheed Martin and GM announced they are teaming up on their own crewed lunar buggy. At the time, a Lockheed executive said the two companies had been working on the vehicle “for a good part of a year now.”
The LTV is a non-pressurized rover, which means that astronauts should wear their spacesuits while driving it. But NASA also aims to provide Artemis astronauts with a large pressurized rover that they can live in for extended periods if needed.
NASA officials said they would develop the pressurized lunar rover in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which is building just such a vehicle with Toyota.
Northrop Grumman has a deep and longstanding relationship with NASA. For example, the company is the primary contractor for the agency’s $ 10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, the highly anticipated observatory set to launch on December 18. Northrop Grumman also builds the Cygnus robotic spacecraft, which has transported cargo missions to international space. Station for NASA since 2013.
Northrop Grumman was also part of a team – along with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and Draper – vying for a contract to supply the Artemis program’s initial human landing system. However, the agency eventually awarded that contract to SpaceX.
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