Nissan and General Motors: Rover duel to return to the Moon

This year marks the twenty years since the last manned mission to the Moon: after NASA’s Apollo 17, no one has returned to our satellite. But the desire, apparently, is there and in any case the car manufacturers are committed to the subject, a bit as an exercise in style and a bit with the hope of being there in case it gets serious. Apollo 17 also marked the third mission where an Lrv – acronym for Lunar Rover Vehicle – traveled the surface of the satellite: for the record, the rover covered a total distance of about 35.9 km, with a total moving duration of about four hours. and twenty-six minutes. Among the houses “on the piece” there are currently GM and Nissan.

GM’s Lunar Terrain Vehicle

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General Motors is working with Lockheed Martin to create a prototype called the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (Ltv), and made it public directly via a teaser video on the Detroit group’s Instagram page. A lander takes the vehicle to the lunar surface, and here the LTV drives itself off a ramp. A sequence reveals a fleet of these vehicles, which end in a rendezvous, implying the possibility of multiple exploration by multiple crews. The design is minimalist, because every extra kg of weight is a problem in space: the car body is low, with pronounced fenders and many side and position lights. There is also a pickup-like cargo bed in the rear for transporting equipment. The goal of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle is to be able to reach the south pole of the Moon, whose terrain is particularly rugged and where temperatures range from -170 ° C at night to over 120 ° C during the day. And of course, the LTV must be able to operate autonomously.

E-4orce: Nissan’s answer

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The Japanese Aerospace Agency (Jaxa) is collaborating with Nissan on the development of a prototype rover equipped with a special technology, called the e-4orce. It is an evolution of independent wheel drive control currently already available on Nissan electric vehicles, which thanks to the management of every single wheel would allow a rover to better navigate the sand, rocks and craters that make up the lunar surface. . To simplify, Nissan research has combined the control technology of the engine of the Leaf to the all-wheel drive technology with independent wheels of the new Ariya, to allow a possible lunar rover to be able to better manage both the overall engine system and the single engine. “Our goal is to achieve the best driving performance in every situation and we believe that the know-how gained from this joint research with Jaxa will bring innovations in our vehicles, which will translate into benefits for all customers,” said Toshiyuki Nakajima, General Manager Advanced Vehicle Engineering Department Nissan.