A Los Angeles-area startup founded by a veteran spaceflight robotics engineer unveiled on Thursday its full-scale, working prototype for a next-generation lunar rover that is just as fast as NASA's old 'moon buggy' but is designed to do much more.
A handout image shows a prototype of California startup Astrolab's Flex lunar rover, that will be able to be operated directly by astronauts on the Moon or remotely by NASA's engineers on Earth, being tested in Death Valley National Park at the Dumont Dunes in December, 2021 and obtained by Reuters on March 10, 2022.
Built around a modular payload system inspired by conventional containerized shipping, FLEX is versatile enough to be used for exploration, cargo delivery, site construction and other logistical work on the moon, the company says. If NASA adopts FLEX and its modular payload platform for Artemis, it would become the first passenger-capable rover to ply the lunar surface since Apollo 17, the last of six original U.S. manned missions to the moon, in December 1972.
While Apollo LRVs carried up to two astronauts seated at its controls like a car, FLEX passengers - one or two at a time - ride standing in the back, driving the vehicle with a joystick.
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