GM Shows Off Lunar Rover After Teasing It Last Year

The rover has four wheels, folding seats and no steering as it has been designed to be autonomous for the lunar terrain.

By Sahil Gupta

1 mins read

Published on January 10, 2022

Highlights

The rover has now been showed off in the flesh in a video released by GM
GM had previously worked with NASA on the original lunar terrain vehicle
Co-developed with Lockheed Martin, it is an autonomous vehicle

GM had been working on a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) as a part of NASA's Artemis program for a while and now it has finally uncovered it. "We chose to go to the moon... again!" the automaker wrote in the post. "This is our Industrial Design team's vision for the next chapter of @GM's lunar legacy together with our partners #GMDefense and @LockheedMartin." GM worked in tandem with Lockheed Martin for the development of the LTV, something it had done so before in the past too - actually 50 years ago when the first Apollo missions landed on the moon. View this post on Instagram A post shared by GM Design (@generalmotorsdesign) undefined It has folding seats and four wheels but it barely has any bodywork. It doesn't even have a driver or steering wheel as it will be autonomous. It is meant to prepare the surface of the moon for human landings and help with payload transportation - while also expanding the range of science experiments conducted in space. "Surface mobility is critical to enable and sustain long-term exploration of the lunar surface," said Rick Ambrose, executive VP of Lockheed Space, GM's partner. "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," he added.