From 26 July to 7 August 1971, the four-wheelers of the American space agency NASA ran on the moon’s surface. This was the Apollo-15 mission. Cars that run on the moon, i.e. Lunar Rover, were manual then. That is, the gear had to be changed by hand. Now the vehicles sent to the moon will be fully automatic. Then there was a car without a roof. This time there is every possibility of the Astronauts having a roof over their heads.
Automatic cars to be sent to the Moon and Mars will be manufactured by American aircraft and rocket maker Lockheed Martin and car and engine manufacturer General Motors. After this, NASA will investigate these automatic cars. They will be sent to the Moon and Mars under the Artemis Program by setting them in their rockets.
Automatic space cars will be able to cover more distance.
Lockheed Martin and General Motors have said that they will build such rovers, thanks to which astronauts will be able to travel long distances on the moon and Mars. At Apollo-15, the car landed on the moon and went only 6.45 km from the landing site. But the astronauts going under the Artemis program will get a chance to cover more distance than this. He will be able to drive his Autonomous Space Car over long distances on the surface of the Moon and Mars.
It will help to cover more distance in less time.
Thanks to such autonomous cars, astronauts will be able to collect better samples by covering more distance in less time. I can use it better. I will be able to spend much longer on the moon or Mars. Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President Rick Ambrose said it would be a state-of-the-art next-generation rover, which will help in scientific discovery on the Moon and Mars in a big way. Humanity will benefit a lot because of these automatic space cars.
It is not easy to drive a car in a place with less gravity.
Rick said that out of all the missions sent to the moon so far, only 5 per cent of it had been discovered. To investigate the remaining 95 per cent, we need such vehicles which can move comfortably on the low gravity surface of the moon. Because driving a car on the moon’s surface is more complex than off-roading on the earth. Because here there will be dense darkness, cold and evil shell. Also, the effect of gravity will be different.
The biggest challenge is the temperature change.
Like Earth or Mars, the moon does not have day and night. Day and night on the moon are 14 days long. That is, Lockheed Martin and General Motors will have to take care of such a design to make an automatic space car that can tolerate temperatures of minus 173 degrees Celsius at night and 126 degrees Celsius during the day. Because in this heat, the most robust metal melts. Engine freezes at low temperature. If the fuel freezes, the car will become challenging to drive.
A trailblazer in the truest sense! We’re excited at the prospect of driving his legacy forward with @GM: https://t.co/yNNoT9KdoV pic.twitter.com/bWzbTfaBu9
— Lockheed Martin Space (@LMSpace) June 6, 2022
Cars will be designed according to gravity.
Madhu Raghavan, Global Research and Development Group Manager at General Motors, said that driving a car or vehicle on the moon becomes difficult due to gravity. We have to give such a design that takes complete care of gravity. Apart from this, it can tolerate temperature changes. Can withstand the effects of radiation. But we are confident that the experts of our companies will do this work easily.
