Three companies are competing for the opportunity to send their own lunar rover to the moon to support NASA's upcoming Artemis missions. He This week it has chosen Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab to develop its lunar vehicles (LTV) in a feasibility study over the next year. After that, only one is expected to be selected for a demonstration mission, in which the vehicle will be completed and sent to the moon for performance and safety testing. NASA plans to use the LTV starting with the Artemis V crew, scheduled for launch in the early 2030s.
The LTV that eventually heads to the Moon's south pole needs to function as a manned and unmanned vehicle, sometimes serving as a means of transportation for astronauts and other times as a remotely operated explorer. NASA says it will contract the chosen vehicle for lunar services through 2039, with all LTV-related task orders potentially worth up to $4.6 billion. The selected company will also be able to use its LTV for commercial activities in its downtime.
Intuitive Machines, which will develop an LTV called Moon Racer, has already landed multiple contracts with NASA as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, and Odysseus, to the moon to achieve it. Venturi Astrolab will develop a vehicle called Flex, while Lunar Outpost will work on an LTV called Lunar Dawn. All must be able to support a crew of two astronauts and withstand the extreme conditions of the lunar south pole.
“We will use the LTV to travel to places we could not otherwise reach on foot, increasing our ability to explore and make new scientific discoveries,” said Jacob Bleacher, NASA's chief exploration scientist.
