Teledyne, Sierra Space and Nissan Team for Lunar Terrain Vehicle

April 5, 2022

Teledyne Brown Engineering has announced it will lead a team along with partners Sierra Space and Nissan North America to design the crewed Lunar Terrain Vehicle that supports future exploration on the moon.

With almost 70 years of space hardware design and development experience, Teledyne Brown Engineering will provide program management, engineering, manufacturing, integration, operations and the power system. The company said it recently designed, build and delivered the first of three Launch Vehicle Stage Adapters of NASA’s Artemis Vehicle, scheduled for initial launch earlier this summer. In addition, the company’s efforts to propel technology in space has resulted in the design, building and operation of the Multi User Sensor for Earth Sensing platform, one of the first commercial initiatives using the International Space Station. As prime contractor, Teledyne has worked with NASA for more than 40 years on space shuttle missions and ISS payloads, along with providing power systems for the Mars Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.

“Teledyne Brown Engineering built the first lunar rover prototype for Dr. Wernher von Braun in the 1960s and we have subsequently supported almost every major U.S. human-rated space mission,” said Reggie Spivey, vice president of the company’s space systems group. “We are proud to continue our extensive presence in space and are excited at the possibility of transporting the first woman and person of color on the surface of the moon.”

Sierra Space will provide flight software, space qualified mechanisms, communications, pointing, navigation, and timing for the LTV. The company’s Dream Chaser vehicle will perform cargo supply and return missions for NASA to and from the ISS. The company also develops the Large Integrated Flexible Environment habitat (LIFE), which is aimed to support astronauts and science experiments in space.

“Sierra Space is firmly situated at the forefront of developing the new space economy and the commercialization of space, and this team has all of the right ingredients to design the definitive Lunar Terrain Vehicle for Artemis astronauts on the Moon,” said Steve Lindsey, a five-time astronaut and chief strategy officer for Sierra Space. “NASA has already developed a commercial partnership model for crew and cargo transport services in low Earth orbit – including our Dream Chaser spaceplane for cargo resupply at the International Space Station – and this LTV team is ready to answer the call as the agency extends that commercial model to astronaut transportation on the lunar surface.”

Nissan North America will bring to the team knowledge of autonomous driving and intelligent vehicle systems, as well as automotive design and innovation. 

“Participation in this project allows for the extension of our industry’s technology and design capabilities to space technology, and vice versa,” said Maarten Sierhuis, alliance global director of Nissan’s Alliance Innovation Laboratory in Silicon Valley. “With this partnership, we will explore possibilities of autonomy and teleoperations, power management systems, vehicle connectivity, and human-machine interface to help shape the future of intelligent lunar rovers. We will then translate these learnings from the LTV operating on the lunar surface back to earth.”

An additional team member is Textron Specialized Vehicles, which brings their Arctic Cat Off Road capabilities for chassis design, vehicle dynamics and suspension handling. Other strategic partners include Relative Dynamics (space communications) and QSTC (formerly AQST) with communication, wheel and traction control capabilities.

For more details about Teledyne Brown Engineering, visit its website here.

Related video:

 

{youtube}-algOZIQUyM{/youtube}