Lunar Terrain Vehicle Selection

NASA announces the three companies it has selected to develop a lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) that Artemis astronauts will use to travel around the lunar surface and conduct scientific research.

Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab have been selected to advance capabilities for an LTV.

"As astronauts explore the south pole region of the Moon, during our Artemis missions, they'll be able to go farther and conduct more science than ever before thanks to the lunar terrain vehicle," NASA's Johnson Space Center director, Vanessa Wyche, tells a news conference in Houston.

Along with funding the commercial development of new rockets, Artemis moon landers and new spacesuits, NASA is pressing ahead with plans to buy an unpressurized moon rover that can carry astronauts, science payloads — or both — across the rugged terrain of the lunar south pole, officials said.

But the new models will feature state-of-the-art technology, long-lasting tires, autonomous computer control and other technology upgrades, allowing them to cover much greater distances under manual astronaut control or by remote control from Earth.

The milestone-based Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract has a maximum value of $4.6 billion.

But NASA is starting out small, doling out three "feasibility" contracts to Intuitive Machines of Houston, Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado, and Venturi Astrolab of Hawthorne, California.

The companies will spend the next 12 months perfecting their designs and developing plans for getting their rovers to the moon. At that point, NASA will conduct a formal competition and choose a single contractor to proceed with actual development.

The goal is to have a working rover waiting on the moon when astronauts making the third Artemis moon landing reach the lunar south pole later this decade.