Chris Hadfield Drives in the Desert With a new Lunar Rover Prototype

By Nancy Atkinson March 18, 2022
Chris Hadfield Drives in the Desert With a new Lunar Rover Prototype

As the Apollo astronauts found out, mobility is everything. Apollo’s Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) – sometimes called the Lunar Rover or Moon Buggy – completely changed how the astronauts could explore the lunar surface.

Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17 said, "Without it, the major scientific discoveries of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 would not have been possible, and our current understanding of lunar evolution would not have been possible."

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fwj8wfFo80

Now, as NASA refines its plans for the return of humans to the Moon, commercial companies are contributing to the range of options that will be available for transportation across the lunar surface.

In this video, retired NASA/CSA astronaut Chris Hadfield shares his experience driving a new rover called the FLEX (Flexible Logistics & Exploration, built by a company called Venturi Astrolab, based in Hawthorne, California. Hadfield, on the company’s board of advisors, drove the rover across a landscape reminiscent of the Moon or Mars near Death Valley, California. Hadfield says in the video the rover is a "joy to drive."

Chris Hadfield and MIT aerospace graduate student Michelle Lin drive the FLEX rover in the desert. Credit: Astrolab.

Powered by solar-powered batteries, the vehicle can drive two astronauts for eight hours, with enough energy capacity to survive the extreme cold of a lunar night, up to 300 hours in total darkness, such as at the Moon's south pole, according to information from the company.

Astrolab said they are pioneering new ways to explore and operate on distant planetary bodies, and want to design, build and operating a fleet of multi-purpose commercial planetary rovers to extend and enhance humanity’s presence in the Solar System.

FLEX weighs about 500 kg (1,100 pounds) and has a 1,500 kg (3,300-pound) cargo capacity, about the same as a light-duty pickup truck. It will

https://youtu.be/7nsUq4KZzZI More views of the field test of the FLEX.

The the company says they are developing FLEX “to support human operations, robotic science, exploration, logistics, construction, resource utilization, and other activities critical to enabling a sustained human presence on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”

NASA says that surface mobility will be critical to the future of human space exploration on both the Moon and Mars, for exploration and for building outposts.

More info on the FLEX rover can be found here.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com