Reaching for the moon

General Motors helped make it happen in the early 1970s. Now, a half-century after the final Apollo missions, automakers are once again looking to build vehicles capable of zooming across Earth's crater-covered moon.

As space agencies work toward returning humans to the planet's only natural satellite, a number of automotive giants are unveiling high-tech concept vehicles that — once built and tested — have a shot at transporting astronaut crews and payloads across the lunar surface by the late 2020s and early 2030s.

Such is the goal of Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker. The company in July 2019 signed on to a three-year joint research agreement with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA, to build a pressurized moon rover equipped with hydrogen fuel cells and six wheels.

"The plans for 2021 include manufacturing test parts for each technology element and manufacturing a prototype rover," Toyota spokeswoman Carley Hummel confirmed to Shift.

Toyota and JAXA have dubbed their rover of behemoth proportions the Lunar Cruiser, a nod to the automaker's Land Cruiser SUV.

Hummel said tentative plans to launch the rover in 2029 haven't changed. Toyota has floated the Lunar Cruiser as an option for Artemis, a multinational program led by NASA and joined by JAXA whose goal is to establish a long-term human presence on the moon as a test run for something bigger: Mars.

NASA has laid plans for which rockets it will use to blast astronauts off to the moon as part of the program's missions. The agency has also considered companies to contract to build a lunar landing system and partnered with international space agencies — including JAXA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency — to build a space station in lunar orbit that astronauts can use as both a laboratory and holding area.

Now NASA is trying to answer another question: If humans again reach the lunar surface, what kind of vehicle technologies are needed to drive across it?

Early last year, NASA issued a call for companies in the U.S. auto industry to submit ideas for "human-class" lunar rovers. The agency received about 30 responses, spokeswoman Monica Witt said.

NASA said submitted tips helped inform its strategy for acquiring vehicle technologies capable of navigating the grainy, gray orb and the lunar south pole, a key area of research interest for Artemis astronauts.

NASA indicated its interest in a smorgasbord of mobility systems, such as electric or autonomous lunar rovers that can be recharged or self-navigate hazardous terrain.

Lunar rovers built with materials that can withstand extreme environments are also desirable, the agency said.

Proposed rovers also need to be spacious enough to fit crew members who will be wearing the bulkier extravehicular activity suits they need to stay alive, according to the agency.

NASA also is looking at robotic mobility systems that could be used to send tools and research equipment across the moon. A vehicle without a crew could be used to explore a wider area of terrain with fewer constraints, the agency said.

Hyundai Motor Group revealed one such mobility concept in February — the TIGER X-1. "TIGER" stands for "Transforming Intelligent Ground Excursion Robot"; the"X-1" means the vehicle is in its experimental first iteration.

Part all-wheel-drive vehicle, part walking pod with four extendable legs, the mobility system is designed for travel over rough or unfamiliar terrain, the Korean auto company said.

It's an evolution of Elevate, a similar concept vehicle Hyundai showcased at CES in 2019. The key difference between the two? TIGER X-1 is not intended to carry human passengers.

Testing of TIGER beta prototypes could start as soon as 2023 or 2024.

Once it's developed, the automaker wants TIGER to be deployed both on and off Earth.

The company's hope is that TIGER will be able to carry out a wide range of tasks — from delivering food and medical supplies to humans in remote disaster zones on Earth all the way to carrying payloads across the lunar surface. TIGER designers also intend for it to connect to aerial vehicles without crews — drones and other aircraft that operate autonomously or via remote control — so it can be charged up or delivered to an area otherwise considered unreachable.

TIGER X-1 is a collaboration between Hyundai's California-based New Horizons Studio, Detroit-based product innovation studio Sundberg-Ferar and Autodesk, an engineering design software company.

German automaker Audi has also dabbled in the world of rovers since 2015. The automaker lent support to PTScientists, now Planetary Transportation Systems, a private aerospace startup based in Berlin, to manufacture the Lunar Quattro, a tiny solar-powered rover so named because it incorporates Audi's all-wheel-drive Quattro technology and an E-tron motor.

Audi and PTS officials did not respond to requests for a project update, but the companies previously indicated an intent to send the Lunar Quattro to touch down near the 1972 landing site of Apollo 17 and take 360-degree photographs on the moon.