Toyota is expanding its business beyond Earth by developing a vehicle to explore the moon's surface and Mars in the future.
Toyota and the Japanese Space Agency JAXA collaborate to develop a hydrogen-powered rover capable of exploring the moon's surface.
According to The Associated Press, the company hopes to help people live on the moon by 2040, possibly moving on to Mars after that.
OS ANGELES - APRIL 24: The Sun shines on the Toyota logo at the world's largest auto dealership, Longo Toyota, which enjoys continued strong sales after a record quarterly report for Toyota April 24, 2007 in El Monte, California. Japan-based Toyota has announced that it has overtaken American auto giant General Motors (GM) with worldwide sales reaching 2.35 million cars and trucks in the first quarter of 2007. GM announced its total for the same period was 2.26 million. As Toyota increased sales in every major market, GM gained market share in China but continued to struggle at home and in Europe and has never penetrated far into Japanese market. Toyota's achievement marks another milestone in the long decline of industrial dominance by U.S. car makers.
Toyota Partners With JAXA For 'Lunar Cruiser'
JAXA and Toyota announced that they would be creating a crewed pressurized rover named "Lunar Cruiser."
Furthermore, the Japanese space agency and the automaker previously declared that they would work together on a manned, pressurized lunar rover employing fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) technology, which they have been doing.
To elaborate on the title "Lunar Cruiser," it was chosen because it creates a sense of familiarity in individuals involved in creating and constructing the vehicle prototype as part of the joint research endeavor and the general public.
The name complements the pressurized lunar rover's predicted quality, endurance, and dependability and Toyota's long-held Land Cruiser notion of "coming back alive," which is especially relevant for the lunar rover because it would be traveling through the hostile lunar environment.
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JAXA and Toyota inked a cooperative research agreement in June 2019 to develop a crewed pressurized lunar rover slated to launch in the second half of the 2020s. Both Japanese businesses collaborated in the same year to produce test parts for each technical component and the prototype rover itself.
About Toyota Lunar Cruiser Mission
Royals Blue claimed that Toyota wants to help people live on the moon by 2040, the first step toward a human settlement on Mars.
Takao Sato, the project leader for Toyota Motor Corporation's Lunar Cruiser, noted that the vehicle is based on the idea that people can eat, work, sleep, and communicate comfortably with others in automobiles, which can also be done in space.
Gitai Japan Inc. has developed a robotic arm for the Lunar Cruiser to check and maintain the rover in orbit. A "fastener" allows for the change of one end of the arm, allowing the arm to be used as a variety of tools.
The Lunar Cruiser concept is that JAXA will launch the ship to the moon first, and it will, after that, be able to automatically travel there to meet the astronauts when they arrive.
A Toyota engineer, Shinichiro Noda, voiced his excitement for the lunar expedition, claiming that the moon may provide considerable resources for Earth life.
Meanwhile, Republic World said ispace Inc., a private space business based in Japan, is developing lunar rovers that it wants to launch for the lunar landing later this year. Another Japanese representative, businessman Yusaku Maezawa, will shortly sail to the Moon aboard SpaceX's Starship rocket owned by Elon Musk.
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