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By Denise Chow
Many car manufacturers manufacture all-terrain vehicles. Toyota is looking to create one for use outside the world.
The automaker announced Tuesday that it would partner with the Japanese space agency to develop and build a lunar rover that future astronauts would use to explore the lunar surface.
Unlike the NASA trio of rescue devices that Apollo astronauts flew on the lunar surface in the 1970s, the proposed aircraft will feature a closed and pressurized cabin. In the artist renderings, the vehicle looks a bit like a big SUV out of the world.
"Manned and pressurized rovers will be an important part of human lunar exploration, which is expected to take place in the 2030s," said Koichi Wakata, vice president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in a statement. . He added that the space agency had the intention to launch the new rover in 2029.
The rover will be approximately 20 feet long by 17 feet wide and will have a 140 cubic foot cabin for two passengers – four in case of emergency. It will be powered by fuel cell technology similar to that used in some of Toyota's land-based vehicles. Fuel cells work with oxygen and hydrogen and emit only water.
The rover will have a range of over 6200 km, according to Toyota. This is a big improvement over NASA lunar buggies brought to the moon on Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions. These electric vehicles were designed for short trips only; Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmidt set a distance record of 22.3 miles on three separate outings in December 1972.
"The Apollo astronauts had to get back to their landing gear every night, so they could only travel a certain distance before they had to turn back," said Brent Garry, geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. in Greenbelt, Maryland, at NBC News. in an email. "The pressure rover is more like a lunar RV. Teams can drive and work "all day", then eat and sleep indoors without having to waste precious time getting back to the LG every time. "
In 2009, Garry spent 14 days in a lunar prototype vehicle as part of a NASA experiment called Desert RATS. This field test, conducted in the Arizona desert, aimed to evaluate several robot technologies.
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