Good Monday morning, friends. It’s your Space Coast correspondent James Sparvero, and I’m reading about a fascinating new agreement between NASA and Japan’s space agency which trades two seats on a moon landing mission for building another moon rover to help astronauts explore unexplored parts of the lunar surface.
The other week, NASA announced which American companies it was awarding billions to build the first lunar terrain vehicles since Apollo. Now, Japan will contribute to the Artemis fleet of moon rovers as well and in exchange, a Japanese astronaut will become the first person not from the U.S. to walk on the moon.
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“Two Japanese astronauts will join future American missions, and one will become the first non-American ever to land on the moon,” President Biden said during a meeting Wednesday with Japan’s prime minister.
A concept design of the rover is pictured above. Toyota calls it the “Lunar Cruiser.” I think it looks a moon RV!
The 20-foot-long cruiser is pressurized so astronauts would drive it from inside the vehicle and not have to wear their spacesuits. JAXA says astronauts could stay inside for about a month at a time!
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson called the cruiser, “a mobile habitat.”
“It’s a place where astronauts can live work and navigate the lunar surface, leading to magnificent discoveries for all of us,” Nelson said.
Equally incredible, when astronauts aren’t onboard, the cruiser could be controlled remotely from another spacecraft or from on Earth.
In the shadow of the exciting partnership is a race against China. China has said it wants to land its first astronauts on the moon by 2030. NASA didn’t say which Artemis mission the Japanese astronauts could be riding on. Artemis III will be the first of the moon landings. It could happen in about 2 1/2 years, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty with the schedule.
📧 Send me an email here if you have any space topics you’d like to discuss.
👋 Here’s a little bit more about me.
Little did I know when watching Apollo 13 in the third grade that 20 years later, I was destined for a thrilling career as your Space Coast multimedia journalist.
Chemistry and biology weren’t so interesting to me in high school science, but I loved my Earth and Space class (Thanks, Mr. Lang).
Then in 2016, I traded Capitol correspondent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for space correspondent. I’m proud that my first live report at News 6 happened to be the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster on a barge. What seems so routine now was a really big deal that day in our newsroom!
From there, I’ve covered the Commercial Crew program and the return of human spaceflight to Kennedy Space Center (Demo-2 launched on my 33rd birthday!)
Now, as our coverage looks forward to missions to the moon and Mars, I often tell others I have the best job in local news. Because after all I’ve seen so far, I think I would be bored working somewhere else. I even bought a house near the Cape with a great view to the north so I never miss a launch even when I’m not working.
After eight years on the beat, though, I still consider myself a young space reporter and I always look forward to learning something new with every assignment.
Have a great launch into the rest of your week!