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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Japan Wants to Put a Toyota on the Moon [bloomberg.com]

Toyota Motor Corp. is scoping out a new frontier: lunar rovers.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is teaming up with the country's largest carmaker to build a six-wheeled self-driving transporter that can carry two humans for a distance of 10,000 kilometers. They're aiming to land a vehicle on the moon in 2029.

[...] Roughly the size of two mini buses, the Toyota-JAXA lunar rover will be six meters long and have 13 square meters of habitable space.

The rover will use solar arrays and fuel cells to generate and store power. It will land on the moon before a human expedition arrives, and drive to meet them. The project calls for the rover to be used in four other exploration areas, so it will have to move around on its own to meet arriving astronauts.

Also at Engadget [engadget.com].

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