The timeframe for ‘s return to the moon is in question, but when it does, it will have to decide what it wants its astronauts to cruise around the lunar surface in.
Northrop Grumman announced on Tuesday that it is designing a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to transport the agency’s Artemis astronauts around the moon.
It is teaming with several different companies, including AVL, tiremaker Michelin, Lunar Outpost and Intuitive Machines to design the rover.
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The announcement comes just hours after a government watchdog said NASA will miss its target for landing humans on the moon in late 2024 by ‘several years.’
Northrop Grumman announced on Tuesday that it is designing a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to transport the agency’s Artemis astronauts around the moon
A report from NASA’s inspector general said cost overruns and the time needed to proper testing were the likely reasons NASA would miss the target date to return to the moon.
‘Given the time needed to develop and fully test the HLS and new spacesuits, we project NASA will exceed its current timetable for landing humans on the Moon in late 2024 by several years,’ the IG wrote in its report, issued on Monday.
The report also notes that NASA is not properly estimating all costs for the Artemis program and could spend as much as $93 billion between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2025, when taking into account the $25 billion needed for missions beyond Artemis III.
<p cl they had been asked by NASA to create a new electric, autonomous lunar rover.
The rover will use GM’s autonomous driving technology and allow it to go ‘significantly farther’ than the ones the auto maker worked on during the Apollo program, some 50 years ago.
, which said NASA’s uncrewed Artemis 1 mission would not launch until February 2022, but the delay still kept the agency on track for the 2024 human lunar landing.
The Artemis I mission will see the Orion spacecraft (pictured), the SLS and the ground systems at Kennedy combine to launch the Orion 280,000 miles past Earth around the moon over the course of a three-week mission
The Artemis I mission will see the Orion spacecraft, the SLS and the ground systems at Kennedy combine to launch the Orion 280,000 miles past Earth around the moon over the course of a three-week mission.
This spacecraft, primarily built by Lockheed Martin, will stay in space ‘longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before,’ NASA has said
