Crewed and robotic lunar rovers will be vital for building NASA's future Moon Base, with the first crewed vehicles (LTVs) to arrive by 2028 and the VIPER rover launching in 2027 to search for water.
01Summary
- 01NASA's VIPER rover will launch in 2027 to the lunar South Pole to search for water in permanently shadowed craters, travelling over 18 miles (30 km).
- 02Astrolab and Lunar Outpost were awarded task orders to build lunar terrain vehicles (LTVs) for crewed missions, to be delivered by 2028 via Blue Origin's lander.
- 03Lunar Outpost's MAPP rover operated at the Moon's South Pole in 2025, testing key subsystems for the Pegasus crewed LTV.
- 04Astrolab's FLIP robotic rover is scheduled to launch in late 2026 as a testbed for the CLV-1 crewed rover.
- 05LTVs will be remotely operated from Earth, travel up to 3.7 miles (6 km) daily, and support up to three moonwalks per Artemis mission.
02Why it matters
This matters because development of lunar rovers is critical to establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon, enabling resource prospecting, astronaut transport, and infrastructure for long-duration exploration.
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