Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency recently confirmed its partnership with car manufacturer Toyota to build a lunar rover for the space agency’s next moon mission.
While Toyota has already built a small robot that was sent to the International Space Station, creating this rover will mark the company’s entry into the space exploration arena.
“We are planning to cooperate with Toyota in an exploration mission to the moon,” a JAXA spokesperson said.
Full details of the collaboration will be announced by JAXA and Toyota next week at a symposium in Tokyo.
The car manufacturer already confirmed the mobility and space probe project with JAXA but declined to comment further.
However, Jiji Press suspects that the mobility method Toyota is currently working on will be used on the lunar surface for JAXA’s next mission.
Moon Mission and Lunar Rover
The mission is reportedly part of the renewed interest of space agencies around the world on Earth’s natural satellite.
At the moment, China is operating two lunar surface missions, the Chang’E 3 and the Chang’E 4 missions.
Chang’E 3 landed on the moon in 2013 while the Chang’E 4 launched late last year as the first space probe to land on the far side of the moon.
In other lunar news, Israel’s Beresheet lander is currently on its way to the Moon and will be the country’s first attempt to land on the lunar surface. The lander will be on a two-month journey covering nearly 6.5 million kilometers circling the Earth before entering the moon’s orbit.
There are other three lunar missions scheduled to blast off this year which include: Chandrayaan-2 from India’s ISRO, Lunar Scout from U.S. Moon Express, and Chang’E 5 from China’s space agency.
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