In August 2021, NASA revealed more details on its plan to purchase a commercial rover which Artemis astronauts will drive on the Moon later this decade. Before soliciting proposals for the same sometime this year, NASA laid out the capabilities it wants this Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to have, and asked U.S. companies for their input on the same by October 1. Since NASA intends to sustain its return to the Moon, the LTV will be far more capable than the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) used by Apollo astronauts, and more sophisticated than even the current crop of Mars rovers.

Here are some of the crewed rover’s salient capabilities NASA envisions at the moment.

• The LTV will be an unenclosed, all-electric rover that two suited astronauts can drive on the Moon for up to 20 kilometers without the rover needing a recharge.

• Unlike Apollo, the LTV will be used across multiple Artemis missions for at least 10 years. This means the LTV must survive frigid night-time temperatures on the Moon’s south pole every month, which can last from a few hours up to at least 85 hours.

• The LTV should be able to traverse 20 degrees slopes, and in general navigate the challenging rugged terrain at the Moon’s south pole, including spending up to two hours in permanently shadowed regions! NASA would also like if the rover has some autonomous capabilities.

• When there aren’t any crewed missions to use the LTV, which will be about 11 months every year for the first few Artemis missions, the rover will be remotely operated by people at the NASA-led Gateway lunar station or from Earth. During this time, the LTV can transport up to 800 kilograms of cargo, science instruments, and technology demonstration payloads between desired points on the Moon.

When NASA revealed these details, it intended the rover to be launched to the Moon in 2027 on a commercial lander part of the agency’s CLPS program. However, NASA indicated in January 2022 that the Artemis V mission, launching no earlier than 2028, will carry the crewed lunar rover instead.

While we wait for NASA to solicit LTV proposals from U.S. companies sometime this year, here are all the proposers we know of.

• Lockheed Martin is partnering with General Motors, who helped develop Apollo’s LRV, to build an LTV-class rover sporting an MDA-provided robotic arm. It will be able to preposition itself near a landing site prior to astronauts arriving on future Artemis missions, and conduct autonomous science operations.

• Northrop Grumman and its partners are building an LTV-class autonomous rover in both crew and cargo variants.

• Astrolab will bid their Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover. Unlike Lockheed and Northrop’s concepts, as far as we know, FLEX already has a fully-functional terrestrial prototype, which has been tested for mobility, crewed and remote operations, and to deploy a variety of large payloads.

• Teledyne Brown Engineering, Sierra Space and Nissan North America have revealed their partnership to bid an LTV-class rover too.

It should be noted that the LTV is just one of the two rover types part of NASA’s Artemis Base Camp, which aims to build the infrastructure necessary for at least a few astronauts to live long-term on the Moon. The other rover is a pressurized, habitable one, which would enable astronauts to explore the Moon’s south pole up to 45 days at a time. NASA will presumably solicit proposals for this even more advanced vehicle at a later stage.

P.S. NASA has made a really cool video ad for the LTV.

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