Your Vehicle To Travel on the Moon

Fleet of Rovers Being Developed to Carry People & Cargo on the Moon & Mars

                                Source:  Venturi Astrolab

California's Venturi Astrolab

California-based startup Venturi Astrolab has developed an interplanetary rover to transport people and cargo on the surface of the Moon and eventually on Mars.  The company has plans to build a fleet of rovers to meet NASA and commercial space companies' needs as humans become an interplanetary race.  Venturi Astrolab says the rovers will help establish and build bases on the Moon and the planets.  They add the rovers will "solve the local transportation problems" on the Moon.  The rovers are called FLEX for Flexible Logistics and Exploration.

Capabilities and Technologies

FLEX is incredibly flexible and dexterous.  It can crouch down, pickup payloads on the lunar surface and carry them to designated locations.  It can maneuver semi-autonomously and be controlled remotely. It can even be modified for astronauts to drive it on the Moon.  It is being successfully tested in California.

Interplanetary Rover

FLEX is a "modular payload concept" and is able to carry many different objects as long as they are an agreed upon size and shape. FLEX can even set up vertical solar panels which will be a critical energy source on the Moon.  As for FLEX, it is powered by the Sun feeding energy to the vehicle's external solar arrays that generate electricity from sunlight.  FLEX also has tremendous battery storage capacity and insulation for the nighttime cold on the Moon.

FLEX's Future

FLEX hopes to be a major component of efforts to bring humanity back on the Moon.  The rush to explore the Moon, establish bases and consumer travel is accelerating with NASA's 2025-2026 Artemis Project to send the first woman and first person of color astronauts to the Moon.  Meanwhile, space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing their own rockets and rovers to ferry space tourists to the Moon, Mars and beyond.  Venturi Astrolab wants to be part of it as the "Uber, Fedex and UPS of the Moon".