Lunar Outpost LTV
Despite an overall budget cut of 24%, NASA plans to secure an additional $7 billion next year to continue work on the Artemis 5 project. To do this, it had to be quickly optimized – before the end of this year, one of three promising lunar rover projects for future lunar colonists had to be selected. GM has introduced the Lunar Outpost LTV concept, which is based on existing solutions for its electric vehicles, and therefore can be relatively easily implemented in metal and plastic.
The lunar rover for the Artemis 5 mission must work on the Moon for about 10 years and travel at least 30 thousand km. The maximum speed is limited to 25 km / h, the actual speed will not exceed 15 km / h due to the difficult terrain. It will regularly experience extreme temperature changes, up to freezing to -173 °C, so you need special thermal insulation of the batteries and a self-heating system. Also, the colonists are unlikely to be able to carry out serious repairs, and therefore the car must be extremely reliable and durable.
Lunar Outpost LTV
GM engineers took batteries with cathodes made of NCMA alloy (nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum oxide) and integrated them into the wheels of the lunar rover to optimize the center of mass. The same batteries are used on GMC Hummer EV and Chevrolet Equinox EV electric vehicles, but in this case, assembly is used using ultra-precise laser welding followed by thermographic diagnostics of the seams to check their quality. The batteries should retain their functions even if some of the cells fail. The chassis is based on GMC e-4x4 technology, which is a modified version of what is used on the Hummer EV. Especially for the lunar rover, the number of electric motors was increased to four, each wheel received a separate drive. Lunar Outpost LTV will be able to move sideways and turn around on the spot. There are controls for a man in a spacesuit, but by default, the rover will ride under the control of an AI or an operator from Earth to reduce the burden on the colonists.
Alexander Martynenko
