The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co supplied essential products for NASA’s Apollo programme, including the Apollo 11 mission which landed on the Moon 53 years ago. The company will continue that tradition — focusing on lunar vehicle tyres — by joining Lockheed Martin in its development of a lunar mobility vehicle.

Since Apollo, Goodyear has continued innovating alongside NASA to advance designs for a lunar vehicle tyre. The companies say they intend to be the first to establish extended-use commercial vehicle operations on the Moon.

Kirk Shireman, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of lunar exploration campaigns, said: “NASA’s Artemis programme to live and work on the Moon has a clear need for lunar surface transportation that we intend to meet with vehicles driven by astronauts or operated autonomously without crew.

“We are developing this new generation of lunar mobility vehicle to be available to NASA and for commercial companies — and even other space agencies — to support science and human exploration. This approach exemplifies NASA’s desire for industry to take the lead with commercial efforts that enable the agency to be one of many customers.”

Chris Helsel, Goodyear’s senior vice president (global operations) and its chief technology officer, said: “Everything we learn from making tyres for the Moon’s extremely difficult operating environment will help us make better airless tyres on Earth. This will contribute to our end goal of enabling mobility no matter where it takes place.”

The Apollo lunar rovers were purpose-built for just a few days of use on excursions within five miles of their landing sites. Future missions will need to traverse rugged terrain over much longer distances while operating in greater temperature extremes. New tyre capabilities will need to be developed for years of durability and even survive the night that sees temperatures of below -121°C and daytime temperatures of over 121°C.

Another ‘teammate’, Canada-based MDA, recently announced that its commercial robotic arm technology will be used on the human-rated lunar mobility vehicles. The arm will provide valuable contributions as support for astronauts as well as enabling greater capability of the rover on fully autonomous missions.