Toyota develops a passenger lunar rover with a robotic arm
Toyota is working with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on a vehicle for exploring the lunar surface, with the goal of helping people live on the Moon by 2040 and then go on to live on Mars.
The vehicle being developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is called the Lunar Cruiser, a name that pays tribute to the Toyota Land Cruiser SUV. Its launch is planned for the late 2020s.
The vehicle is based on the idea that people can eat, work, sleep and interact with other people safely inside a car, and the same can be done in space, according to Takao Sato, head of the Lunar Cruiser project at Toyota Motor.
“We see space as an area of our transformation that happens once every century. By going to space, we will be able to develop telecommunications and other technologies that will prove useful for human life”
Toyota describes the Lunar Cruiser mission as achieving sustainable prosperity and expanding the scope of human activity. However, the vehicle will face serious challenges, as lunar gravity is one-sixth of Earth's and the Moon has a complex landscape covered with craters, rocks and hills. The Moon is also subject to harsher conditions than Earth, such as radiation and extreme temperatures.
To counter this, Gitai Japan has developed a robotic arm for the Lunar Cruiser designed to carry out tasks such as inspection and maintenance. Its "gripping attachment" allows the end of the arm to be changed so it can work as different tools, scooping, lifting and sweeping.
Gitai CEO Sho Nakanose said that, in his view, the challenge of flying to space has largely been solved, but working in space entails high costs and dangers for astronauts. According to him, this is where robots will come in handy.
Since its founding in the 1930s, Toyota has been concerned about losing its core business as times change. The company has ventured into housing, boats, aircraft and robots. For example, construction of its connected, eco-friendly residential district Woven City near Mount Fuji will begin this year.
Toyota engineer Shinichiro Noda said he is excited about the lunar project, which continues the carmaker's long-standing mission of customer service, and that the Moon could provide valuable resources for life on Earth.
“Taking our cars to the Moon is our mission. Toyota cars are almost everywhere. But it is about bringing our cars to places where we have never been”
Toyota also plans to use hydrogen technology in the Lunar Cruiser, which will make the vehicle less harmful to the environment.
“Fuel cells, which use clean energy generation methods and emit only water, and which can provide a large amount of energy thanks to their high energy density, make them especially suitable for the project being discussed with JAXA”
Japan's Moon exploration is growing. The private Japanese company ispace is working on building lunar rovers, landing them and placing them in orbit, with a Moon landing scheduled for late 2022. Businessman Yusaku Maezawa, who recently released a video of himself swimming on the International Space Station, has booked a flight around the Moon aboard Tesla CEO Elon Musk's spacecraft.
Even with the limited amount of energy that can be delivered to the Moon, the Lunar Cruiser will have a total surface travel range of more than 10,000 km.
The goal of international space exploration is to achieve sustainable prosperity for humanity by expanding the scope of our activities and creating intellectual property assets. To achieve these goals, coordination between robotic missions is important for research.
Examples of this include the successful landing of the Hayabusa2 probe on the asteroid Ryugu and crewed missions using pressurized rovers for work on the Moon. But when it comes to complex missions, such as exploring the Moon or Mars, countries compete in advancing their technologies as well as in their joint efforts.
“We are carrying out international coordination and technology research so that Japan can take part in international space exploration. We aim to contribute with advanced Japanese technologies that could potentially generate side benefits. The fact that Toyota has joined us in international space research greatly strengthens our confidence. Crewed rovers with pressurized cabins are an element that will play an important role in the full-scale exploration and use of the lunar surface. To this end, we would like to concentrate our country's technological capabilities and conduct technology research. We would like to use Toyota's excellent technological capabilities related to mobility”
Toyota's president said: "The automotive industry has long worked with the concepts of 'hometown' and 'home country.' However, from now on, in addressing issues such as global-scale environmental problems, the concept of the 'home planet' from which we all originated will become a very important concept. Going beyond countries or regions, I believe our industry, which constantly thinks about the role it should play, shares the same aspirations as international space exploration."
“In addition, cars are used in all regions of the Earth, and in some regions cars play an active role as partners so that people return alive. I think this is exactly what is needed in this project. I am very glad that in this project expectations have been placed on the durability and driving qualities of Toyota cars developed to date, as well as on our fuel cell environmental technologies”
The Lunar Cruiser is expected to be roughly the size of two minibuses: 6 m long, 5.2 m wide and 3.8 m high. It offers 13 m³ of living space, designed for comfortable living for two people or four in an emergency.
