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This topic is offered for NewMars members who might like to help to build up a collection of knowledge about transportation systems designed for the Moon of Earth, which should work equally well on Phobos or Deimos.
We'll lead off with a long article from National Geographic about ongoing development of rovers for Artemis.
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Post #3: Report on Lunar rovers in development for Artemis
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This post is about development of lunar rovers for future Artemis missions.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie … fcQjoK5IZC
The article is long, and the pictures are numerous and of high quality.
SCIENCE
RETURN TO THE MOONThese are NASA’s new moon rovers. We drove them.
A retro-futuristic space truck and a nimble crustacean on wheels just won a competition to deploy on a future NASA Artemis mission. And we took them out for a spin.
Lunar Outpost’s Eagle was one of three designs in the running to be NASA's new moon rover. A more pared down version, dubbed Pegasus, was selected to fly to the moon on a future Artemis mission, alongside a vehicle from Venturi Astrolab.
ByRobin George Andrews
Photographs byChris Gunn
Last updated May 26, 2026<snip>
Almost everyone at the announcement could only imagine what it might be like to pilot an LTV on the lunar surface. But we have some first-hand insight. Last summer, National Geographic asked all three companies the same question: Can we take them for a test-drive?
<snip>All three LTVs share similar design choices, in part because they were given the same set of base requirements by NASA. And yet, because each company has a novel vision for how astronauts will venture across the lunar south pole, all three designs are materially distinct. Becoming an instrumental part of the Artemis campaign, then, depended entirely on which vision inspired the space agency the most.
LUNAR OUTPOST
Location: Southern Colorado Desert
Name: Eagle
LTV Type: Space Truck
NASA’s contest is a tall order. But Cyrus is up to the challenge. “It started when I was a kid,” he tells me, sitting at a small table in the middle of the desert. He was taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for its annual community chili cook-off. One year, there was an additional competition to build a space station with Lego blocks. “I love Lego. It’s the coolest toy,” he says. He came third in that competition. “I’m still a little salty about that. I’ve very competitive.” That drive convinced him to become a roboticist, and he eventually co-founded Lunar Outpost in 2017.<snip>
ASTROLAB
Location: Hawthorne, California
Name: Flex
LTV Type: Nimble Crustacean
It’s difficult to describe what I’m looking at. It’s a boxy, silver, metallic oddity –on wheels. It wouldn’t look out of place in The Expanse. This is the Flexible Logistics and Exploration, or FLEX, rover. It is the singular developmental focus of Astrolab. And they’re confident it’s the avant-garde ride NASA’s looking for.Test Driving the FLEX Rover
Astrolab founder and CEO Matthews started his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he worked on the Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity Mars rovers. He then worked for SpaceX for a while—including on Starship, the colossal, reusable launch vehicle that will ship pretty much anything to the moon, from crew to cargo.<snip>
With its cuboid shape and Mars rover-like appearance, FLEX is less stylized than Eagle. As intended, it’s explicitly functional. Matthews hopes NASA buys into that ethos. “To be providing mobility to humans for the first time in more than 50 years on the moon? That’s incredible to think about.” But ultimately, he says, he wants FLEX to be “the picks and shovels of the new moon rush. We want to be the thing that’s enabling anyone else who’s got interesting ideas to make money on the moon.”
INTUITIVE MACHINES
Location: Houston, Texas
Name: Moon Racer
LTV Type: Space-Age Dune Buggy
The employees of all three companies take inspiration from science fiction, but Intuitive Machines wears those influences most proudly.Test Driving the Moon Racer
<snip>UPDATE: This piece has been updated with the announcement of the winners of NASA’s lunar terrain vehicle contract.
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