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Toyota's experience in making durable vehicles was a key factor in NASA and JAXA choosing them as the primary developer of the lunar rover.
Toyota will almost certainly be the first car company in the world that can boast of being the first brand to send a car to the Moon.
The reason for this is that this April, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully signed an agreement with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Japanese organization will provide vehicles for the next human step on the Moon.
The party behind the development of this vehicle is none other than the largest car company in Japan in particular and the world in general: Toyota. The lunar exploration vehicle must have extremely good durability, and so it can be said that Toyota was sought as a development partner.
Toyota has been collaborating with JAXA since 2019 on a rover nicknamed Lunar Cruiser.
Supporting them in their development is the Heavy Industries division of Mitsubishi.
The two will complete the Lunar Cruiser to serve the Artemis project to explore the Moon in 2032.
The Lunar Cruiser will essentially be an electric mobile home on the Moon. Its biggest mission will be to create an environment for living creatures.
Inside the vehicle, the crew can remove their spacesuits and live for up to a month. The vehicle must also be able to move for eight hours a day for six consecutive days.
Assisting the Lunar Cruiser driver will be a self-driving system capable of operating in difficult terrain without any prior mapping support. An advanced LIDAR system will help the vehicle avoid large craters that appear densely on the Moon.
The Lunar Cruiser is powered by a renewable hydrogen fuel cell and solar panels. Water will be fed into an electrolyzer to split into hydrogen (to recharge the batteries) and oxygen for the crew to breathe. The operation will also convert the hydrogen back into water to continue the cycle.
Lunar Cruiser is expected to explore the Moon for 10 years with a total expected journey of 100,000km. The crew will be continuously replaced during this process.
So far, NASA has carried out one Artemis project mission - Artemis 1, which will send the Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit (and back) in late 2022.
The Artemis 2 mission is scheduled to take four astronauts around the Moon in September 2025, while Artemis 3 will reach the area near the lunar south pole a year later. However, the autonomous vehicle operating on the lunar surface will not be put into use until next decade.
