All-terrain space truck hopes to drive astronauts on the moon

In April 2024, NASA selected three finalists to design, build, and pitch their own Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) for the Artemis program within 12 months. Ever since, Intuitive Machines, Venturi Astrolab, and Lunar Outpost have raced to meet the impending deadline to deliver the best moon car plan possible. 

Lunar Outpost’s Lunar Dawn team revealed its latest high-fidelity prototype, the Lunar Outpost Eagle, on April 8. The vehicle will officially debut at Space Symposium 2025 in Colorado Springs and provide attendees with the closest look yet at the Artemis program hopeful. Eagle is the fourth prototype iteration so far, and was built in collaboration from General Motors, Goodyear, MDA Space, and Leidos, the Eagle is envisioned as the “quintessential Space Truck,” according to AJ Gemer, Lunar Outpost CTO.

Eagle’s current version features a reconfigurable cargo bed, as well as a robotic arm for helping with payloads.It will reportedly rely on autonomous navigation software with or without astronauts behind the wheel. The LTV’s final design is intended to also support advanced onboard instrumentation for various experiments while maintaining high-bandwidth communication relays.

Lunar Outpost plans to ensure its LTV can not only endure the moon’s harsh, two-week long lunar nights, but continue operating as surface temperatures drop as low as -280 degrees Fahrenheit. These and other safeguards are critical to the LTV remaining functional for years beyond its first mission.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Lunar Outpost since NASA awarded the company with its feasibility task order. Last February, a small, four-wheeled rover built by the company hitched a ride aboard Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander mission. Although “Odie” became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully land on the moon on March 6, it did so on its side. As a result, Lunar Outpost’s scale test rover could not deploy to test Nokia’s first-of-its-kind lunar cellular network. Despite this, engineers still managed to successfully maintain telecommunications links with the rover for over 200 hours, as well as meeting Lunar Technology Readiness Level (TRL 9) requirements for key rover subsystems. 

Following Eagle’s premiere at the Space Symposium, Lunar Outpost’s LTV will begin its Preliminary Design Review process to ensure it meets all of NASA’s requirements before delivering a completed pitch to the agency. NASA is expected to announce the winning LTV bid by the end of this year. If all goes according to plan (which admittedly is a big “if”), Lunar Outpost’s Eagle lander could be a part of the Artemis V mission currently scheduled for 2030.

 

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