NASA is set to announce the company or companies chosen to develop the rover for its Artemis program of lunar exploration during a press conference on April 3 at 4 p.m. EDT. The announcement will be made by key NASA figures, including Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA Headquarters, and Lara Kearney, manager of the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program at JSC.
The two-person Artemis rover, officially known as the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), will aid astronauts in exploring the moon’s south polar region, with plans to establish a base in an area believed to contain abundant water ice. Similar to NASA’s original lunar rover, the Apollo moon buggy, the LTV will be unpressurized, requiring astronauts to wear spacesuits while operating it on the moon.
However, the LTV is designed to operate autonomously, allowing it to conduct scientific work during periods when crewed Artemis missions are not active. The rover is expected to debut no earlier than the Artemis 3 mission, scheduled for September 2026, when astronauts are set to land near the moon’s south pole for the first time.
