General Motors Is Going Back to the Moon
General Motors announced a new vehicle today, but it won’t be one you can find on dealership lots. The latest offering, a partnership with Lockheed Martin and NASA, is destined for greater things: the moon.
The team at GM created the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, or LTV, after NASA put out a call for proposals last year. This LTV will be part of Artemis, a project to return humans to the lunar surface, and will hopefully help future astronauts roam far from their spacecraft to collect data and visit places humans have never been. It’s destined for space travel, but the concept uses several Earth-based features like autonomous technology and electric power.
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While this is an exciting announcement for any automaker, for GM it’s old hat. The company was the key automotive partner for the original Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle that went to the moon with Apollo 15-17. GM made the LRV’s special tires with metal treads, suspension, and powertrain. The company also played a big role in the space program by creating critical navigation systems for all of the Apollo missions’ spacecraft.
Lockheed Martin brings its own expertise to the project, as it has worked with NASA for more than half a century. Besides the LTV, the company designed Artemis’s Orion exploration-class spaceship.
Photo: NASA via public domain
“This alliance brings together powerhouse innovation from both companies to make a transformative class of vehicles,” said Rick Ambrose of Lockheed Martin Space. “Surface mobility is critical to enable and sustain long-term exploration of the lunar surface. These next-generation rovers will dramatically extend the range of astronauts as they perform high-priority science investigation on the Moon that will ultimately impact humanity’s understanding of our place in the solar system.”
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This is a pretty exciting announcement, considering that most non-production GM vehicles are concepts that we’ll see for an auto show season and then never again. While many of us will probably never set eyes on the new LTV, we’ll all hopefully get to see footage of it prowling on the moon’s surface and benefit from its passengers’ experiments.
Check out the LTV’s special reveal video below.
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