Why has the importance of electric car companies increased for Nasa’s lunar mission?

The American space agency NASA is planning to send astronauts to the moon once again. The Artemis mission is a hallmark of this. The mission is expected to launch this year, and by 2025, with the Artemis III mission, will send a crew to ferry a crew around the Moon’s South Pole. NASA plans that the astronauts accompanying this mission will stay on the Moon for a week, so that they can explore the area around the landing site. Its purpose is also to prepare a base camp for future Moon missions. All this would require a high capacity vehicle.

The rover and vehicles that NASA wants to include in this mission is planning, They also have a pressurized ‘Habitable Mobility Platform’, which can transport the crew involved in the mission for 45 days. According to NASA’s requirements, the crew vehicle must be designed to last for at least a decade. The vehicle’s design will also serve as a standard for future missions to Mars.

In view of these challenges, space agencies are attracting auto manufacturers to design durable rovers. Currently, two partnerships have moved forward for NASA’s vehicle on the Moon. The first partnership is between General Motors and Lockheed Martin, announced in May last year. The second partnership was announced last November between Northrop Grumman, AVL, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Michelin.

Something similar is happening in Japan as well. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has partnered with Nissan and Toyota for two separate lunar driving projects. In December, Nissan unveiled an unmanned lunar rover prototype. At the same time, Toyota is designing a lunar cruiser. Toyota officials announced in January that after deploying the cruiser on the Moon, the company would adapt it for use on Mars.

Takao Sato, head of Toyota Motor’s Lunar Cruiser project, said the idea behind the vehicle is that people can eat, work, sleep and communicate safely in cars. The same is done outside space. That is, the vehicle is being prepared on these lines.

Scientist Paul Niles of NASA’s Johnson Space Center says that it will definitely help in automation and such partnerships will support the mission.