When it comes to space exploration, Japan is actually very advanced. The country of Sakura and Samurai has repeatedly sent its best astronauts into the International Space Station to perform experiments inside the famous Kibo Module. Now, the Japanese Space Exploration Agency, in a collaboration with Toyota, is ready to build an indegineous moon rover!
The space agency, which is familiarly abbreviated as JAXA, has signed an ambitious agreement with the world’s leading car manufacturer Toyota. The project to create a full cell moon rover is expected to start as soon as possible.
The two entities have agreed to conduct a three years of joint research and development program. The rover is planned to be ready for a moon mission in 2029.
A lot of studies will need to be conducted as the moon rover will require advanced technology. However, with a combination of Toyota’s car manufacturing capabilities and the genius minds of JAXA’s researchers, the project is expected to be a smooth sailing.
The agreement, which started in 2019, will have a focused timeline to ensure the completion of the moon rover. The first year of the cooperation was spent by researching technical requirements and testing individual parts of the rover.
This year in 2021, JAXA and Toyota are expected to be ready for comprehensive parts testing and building a working moon rover prototype. In a span of less than three years, a complete and working moon rover prototype will be ready to mow down the testing arena.
Using cutting edge charging technology, the Japanese moon rover is estimated to be capable of traveling up to 10,000 km!
Moon is very fast and filled with treacherous obstacles. However, with the enormous transportation capacity, making a detour would not hurt the resource of potential future space missions,
In the current design, this moon rover will not be small. It has a dimension of 20 feet long and 17 feet wide.
The moon rover will be as tall as 12.5 feet high and it will be equipped with six wheels.
Because of the massive size, the Japanese rover may potentially be able to carry several astronauts passengers. The explarion range for moon research will be vastly improved with this rover once manned missions are carried out. Furthermore, the rover will be able to carry a giant radar dish on its roof to transmit and receive data on the go.
Would you like to drive around a moon colony using this Japanese moon rover one day? That will be freaking futuristic and super cool!
