NASA awarded two companies contracts on Tuesday to develop 21st-century versions of the moon buggies astronauts drove in the Apollo missions of the early 1970s.
Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colo., and Venturi Astrolab of Hawthorne, Calif., will each receive about $220 million to build the vehicles.
Carlos García-Galán, who heads NASA’s program to build a moon base over the coming decade, said the space agency wanted to have a rover ready on the moon when the next astronauts arrived. That could be as soon as 2028, when the mission known as Artemis IV is scheduled to touch down.
“It’s absolutely an objective,” Mr. García-Galán said during a news conference on Tuesday that provided an update on NASA’s plans for building an outpost on the moon.
The two new rovers — what NASA calls lunar terrain vehicles, or L.T.V.s — will be much more capable than their Apollo predecessors. Each will weigh about one metric ton, will have the capability to drive up and down 20-degree slopes and will be able to carry two astronauts. When no astronauts are around, the rovers will be able to drive themselves around, or drivers on Earth could take the wheel remotely.
Both vehicles have more modest designs than what NASA had originally sought four years ago. At that time, NASA asked companies to make proposals for what was essentially a 10-year rental car service on the surface of the moon. The L.T.V. requirements then included a robotic arm and a top speed of 9.3 miles per hour. But in 2024, when NASA announced the finalists, which included Lunar Outpost and Astrolab, the space agency said that only one winner would be selected and that it did not expect the vehicle to be ready until 2030.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
