After an amazingly brief 17 months of designing and testing, the ò??Moon buggyò??, the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), or Lunar Rover was used from 1971-1972 as a key component of missions 15-17 of the Apollo Program. Created primarily to extend the range of terrain that the two Apollo crew members could explore during their stay on the Moonò??s surface, four fully space-worthy lunar rovers along with seven test models were built in preparation for these J-Missions. The fourth sibling from the LRV family however never had the opportunity to enter space, as after the announced dissolution of the Apollo program it was relegated to providing spare parts for the other rovers.
The first successful rover to land on the Moon was in fact the Soviet Unionò??s robotic Lunokhod 1. Dismounting a ramp from the Luna 17 lander onÒš 17 November 1970, for the following 10 months this eight-wheeled vehicle travelled over 10km of lunar surface transmitting useful geological data and imagery back to its remote-controllers on Earth. Solar-powered during the day, a radioisotope heater helped Lunokhod 1 endure the freezing-cold temperatures of the Moon at night. On the other side of the Pacific however from among various contenders including Grumman and Chrysler, the American-owned aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing secured the main Apollo LRV construction contract. Saverio ò??Sonnyò?? Morea was appointed LRV program manager. General Motors were also brought on board to manage the development of the Moon buggyò??s motors, wheels, and suspension.
Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke test-drive a Rover Earth Trainer Unit in the Lunar Surface Simulator. The simulator helped develop the LRV navigation system and was an aid to engineers on Earth while the Apollo Missions were taking place. (Image credit: NASA)
Following in the most pragmatic traditions of spacecraft manufacture every part of the LRV had to be constructed from the lightest materials possible, so long as the choice of these materials did not compromise the buggyò??s ability to withstand a load and the structural stresses of bumps during launch, touchdown, or navigation of lunar terrain. Likewise, every part of the Lunar Roving Vehicle had to be able to withstand the extreme temperature variations experienced on the surface of the Moon, ranging to 150 degrees below freezing. Worth 95 times the value of even a present day Rolls Royce, the first Lunar Rover emerged from the production line bearing a $38 000 000 price tag. Although lacking electric windows or convertible hood, the flight-compacted LRV package transformed before emerging as the four-wheeled Moon buggy we all recognise.
This general arrangement diagram of a Lunar Module shows where the LRV was stowed. (Image credit: NASA)
How the LRV was unfolded and removed from the LM. Watch it animated and how it was done for real in the videos below. (Image credit: NASA)
Commander Eugene A. Cernan test-driving an empty LRV on the Moon, shortly before loading-on equipment for Apollo 17 Missionò??s first Extra-Vehicular Activity. (Image credit: NASA)
General arrangement of Lunar Rover Vehicle (Image credit: NASA)
Weighing 204kg, equipped with one ÒÌhp electric motor per wheel, and powered by two 36V silver zinc non-rechargeable batteries, the Lunar Roving Vehicle could perform four wheel-steering, execute a U-turn within a three metre radius, and operate under a total vehicle weight of up to 659kg (104 stone). Mounted on the buggyò??s chassis were: seatbelts; a T-handle driving control console with odometer detailing distance and bearing from the Lunar Module; a handbrake; a communications antennae; a navigational gyroscope orientated in relation to the Sun; a TV camera relaying footage back to Earth.
With Mount Hadley beyond, Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin completes Apollo 15 Missionò??s first EVA. Clearly visible are the lunar sample bags attached to the back of the Rover. (Image credit: NASA/David Scott)
Measuring 3.1m by 2.3m (wheelbase), the three Lunar Rovers were used to ferry scientific equipment, tools, life support consumables, lunar rock samples, and up to two occupants on their Extra-Vehicular Activities over a total of 90km of the Moonò??s surface. The tool caddy was furnished with: a hammer, a sampling scoop, a brush, and a rake. Had new spacesuits enabling bending at the waist not been designed for Apollo Missions 15-17, no astronaut could have ever sat in a Lunar Rover. The new range of movement afforded by the suit facilitated kneeling and eased sample collection during EVAò??s. Although LRVs were capable of running on just one battery in an emergency, the lunar astronauts always commenced their EVA by navigating the vehicles to the farthest calculated point from the lander module. This ensured that all subsequent stopping points of the traverse brought the astronauts increasingly close to the landing spacecraft, should the buggy have completely failed and returning by foot became a necessity.
Lunar Rover control panel on a replica LRV unit in the Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington. (Image credit: Shannon Lucas via Wikimedia Commons)
The LRV astronaut operators of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 claimed that the lunar maps mounted on the LRV map holder did not resemble the Moonò??s topography to any recognisable degree of accuracy. Moreover although quite an engineering feat to have achieved, the Lunar Rover navigation system was accurate at best only to within a range of 100 m. Scott and Irwin of Apollo 15 stated that if parked on a very steep slope the Roving Vehicle side-slipped downhill when the crew dismounted. Wire-mesh rather than rubber tyres were specially designed to improve grip where the buggyò??s decreased lunar weight meant less frictional pressure could be exerted on the dusty lunar surface. 32 inches by 9, the tyre structure was formed from fine zinc-coated woven steel strands attached to a spun aluminium wheel hub. On the flat, these large wheels cleared the buggyò??s undercarriage a good 12 inches from the lunar terrain.
A closer look: the titanium treads, zinc-coated steel wire-mesh tyre, and brown fender on the LRV replica displayed in the National Air and Space Museum, Washington. (Image credit: NASA via Wikimedia Commons)
With a pattern of steel chevrons attached to the meshò??s main contact surface, sufficient traction was achieved for the Lunar Roving Vehicles to climb 25 degree-inclined slopes and overcome obstacles up to a foot tall. A frequent compulsory activity the Rover astronauts performed during an EVA excursion was to brush any accumulating lunar dust from the upward-facing battery-cooling radiators and the lunar communications relay unit to guarantee the batteries and TV circuits would not overheat. However, although not intentional participants of some cosmic dirt-track rally, with the loss of a wheel fender during a lunar traverse, the Apollo 16 LRV crew covered themselves and the LRV console in sufficient lunar dirt potentially to qualify. The lunar maps these astronauts were forced to clamp in place as a makeshift fender are today on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
The high-gain communications antenna with the TV camera in the stowed position on the Apollo 15 Lunar buggy chassis. (Image credit: PD-USGOV-NASA via Wikimedia Commons)
On the Moon John Young (Apollo 16) achieved the LRV speed record of 11kmph which ò??Jò??-Mission astronauts indicated was quite fast enough in an environment of 1/6 Earthò??s gravity. LRV2 operators Young and Duke claimed that travelling down Sun or into the Sun meant that they could only see craters when they were over them and Apollo 17 Rover Astronauts Cernan and Schmitt said that a sensation of ò??overturningò?? was experienced when the LRV3 bounced over them. Although TV coverage with the high gain antenna was not possible while the LRV was moving, audio communication was maintained with the low gain antenna. Despite the footage limitations, the TV camera could be controlled remotely from Earth, enabling panoramic filming of the astronauts carrying out scientific studies at the Roverò??s stopping stations.
Apollo 16 Orionò??s land and launch site: as only the ò??ascent stageò?? (grey upper half) of the Lunar Module could leave the Moonò??s surface to return to Earth, besides crew there was little room for a Lunar Rover. (Image credit: NASA via Wikimedia Commons)
Harrison Schmitt, one of the last astronauts to ever operate an LRV on the Moon attributed mission success to the Lunar Roving Vehicle: ò??The Lunar Rover proved to be the reliable, safe and flexible lunar exploration vehicle we expected it to be. Without it, the major scientific discoveries of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 would not have been possible; and our current understanding of lunar evolution would not have been possible.”
Station 8, Cochise Crater: Apollo 17 crewò??s footprints depart the Lunar Roving Vehicle for the last time. It’s only a machine, but it still looks lonely. (Image credit: NASA via Wikimedia Commons)
When you next gaze at the Moon, imagine three lunar buggies that were destined for an extra-terrestrial world, standing on silent vigil close to the Apollo lander sites where they were abandoned 40 years ago. For the final service an LRV rendered its Apollo Mission crew was to film the Lunar Module and its crew blast-off from the landing platform and ascend back into space. Where others had failed, Apollo 17, the culmination of all previous J-Missions and the last chapter of the Apollo program, succeeded in attaining this eagerly- awaited footage.
(Please note that Armagh Planetarium is not affiliated with NASA or any company which built components of the LRV. We regret that we cannot help you trace, contactÒš or research people who worked on this project.)
FURTHER READING
LUNAR ROVING VEHICLE OPERATIONS HANDBOOK (link)
(Article by Nick Parke, Education Support Officer, updated 1 February 2016)
Hello there! I’m just a car salesman from Arkansas, but I sold a vehicle to a John Davidson this week. He told me he was one of three engineers to design the moon rover. I know that isn’t very specific, but I was wandering if you could tell me any information you may know about him. He was very passionate about the topic, and at the age of 86, he is blind and crippled. I’d love to be able to contact him and tell him that someone remembered him or documented some of his work. Thanks.
I know John Davidson. His work was amazing and he was a great man.
why would you sell a vehicle to a blind and crippled man
And what kind of car dealer doesn’t have enough information on someone to be able to call them later? Ever car I’ve ever bought the salesman called me a few days later to see if I was happy.
because he needed a car. The man would know if he could drive or not.
roving robots achieve a successful technical value in server abilities and collecting samples from planets. Astronauts also helped by it to travel easily on surface of moon
hahahahaha
where did they need to travel to?
As Nick said in his first paragraph the LRV was “Created primarily to extend the range of terrain that the two Apollo crew members could explore during their stay on the Moonò??s surface”.
The Apollo crews followed pretty strict “itineraries” of interesting geological sites to visit laid down by the mission planners. Many of these lay further from the planned landing sites than astronauts could go on foot so bringing a vehicle along was an obvious way to increase the amount of data and samples the crew could bring back.
Why would they need to “dust” off the batteries to prevent them from overheating? Did they need the non-existent “air” to blow on them to keep them cool? You would think the dust would prevent the direct sunlight from making them overheat. Doesn’t make any sense….
Hi, preventing the LRV’s batteries from overheating was a major concern in the vehicle’s design phase. There were experiments to investigate this and one major finding was that dark dust (and lunar surface material is very dark) accumulating on the radiators meant the radiator would absorb a lot of solar hear, reducing their efficiency. As a result it was very important to remove dust from the radiators.
If you would like to learn more about this, there is a very informative and detailed presentation about the design and practical experience of the LRV’s thermal controls by one of the engineers who worked on it at this link.
I hope you found this helpful.
hahahahaha
h
a
Dear Andre, I’m glad you’re enjoying your visits here, but how about some some content in your next post?
thank you
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and watched the footage on tv, we did not have the technology to land on the moon, and another thing i have always wondered even as a boy. How did they get the lunar rover on the moon? I have built countless scale models of all kinds of things , From cars to rockets ,space shuttles lunar landers . and have seen diagrams of the lunar landers, Funny! there has never been any mention of storage space or lunar buggy attached to the craft .. Curious .Dont Ya think?
Dear Jim,
So did I!
I don’t understand why you could think that.
The rovers were cleverly designed be folded and stowed in the Descent Stage of the Lunar Module. There is no secret about this, it was widely covered in the BBC broadcasts of the last three Apollo landings and in UK magazines and newspapers. This is a link to a manual prepared by Boeing, who built the rovers with complete engineering detail (as a modeller, I’m sure you will find this fascinating as I do). The deployment of the rover from the LM is extensively discussed starting at Section 1-67. The blog post you are commenting on included a video of the deployment being tested on Earth.
Photos of Apollo 15’s rover folded for attachment on the LM are at this link. You can see it attached to the Descent Stage (before it was covered in thermal protection material- the white squares are the seats) at this link. There are videos for this rover being deployed on the Moon at this link and this link.
It took a quick online search to find these, there is a lot more detail out there if you want to look.
Thank You for sharing these great photos. I am 43, and when i view these images and all the great historical information, i feel like a kid again viewing all the Great NASA live video. I am still in awe of the Space Program, and im sure I will continue to be amazed. I look forward to sharing these images with my children as well. –
I remember watching men on the moon for hours as it actually happened and would like to watch them again. I have been wanting this for decades – since the advent of videos. Where could I get videos of all of the moon walks in their entirety?
I don’t want commentary – other than the voices of the astronauts.
Thank you in advance.
Hi, I believe there is a company called Spacecraft Films that sells complete unedited copies of the movies made on Apollo missions, so that might be a starting point for you. I have never seen any of their DVDs so I can’t really say anything else, but I hope this helps you.
hey can we find such projects to make a small satellite vehicle to test over own ideas
I’m not quite sure what you are asking, but if you are interested in sending a rover of your own to the Moon, you ought to look at the Google X-Prize (link).
Why was the moon’s horizon only 100 yards away in any direction?
I’m not sure you’re right about that. To show you what I mean, have a look at the photo on this page of Jim Irwin with Mt. Hadley in the background, the mountain is about 4km high so it must be several kilometres away.
From geometry, for a 2m tall human on the Moon, the horizon ought to be about 2.5km away. I hope this helps.
I’ve noticed the same thing!!
It appears that way because they used front screen projection in the studio just like they did in 2001 a Space Odyssey which was produced a year before the supposed Apollo landings. See Stanley Kubrick, producer, who was commissioned by NASA (Never A Straight Answer) to help with the film production! Also check out the same backgrounds in different missions supposedly on different areas of the moon’s surface.
Oh and another one
we are to told that the light reflecting off the moons surface is the reason why there was light where there would be shadows cast from the sun….so why didn’t the astronauts drive the lunar rover over to the darkness 100 yards away to look at the stars? and even take a picture of them? or does the sunlight move to wherever the astronauts move?
Thanks in advance
I’m not sure exactly what you are are asking here. I’ll deal with your last question first.
No, it doesn’t. Why would it? Just as an aside, with the Moon’s rotation being much, much slower than than Earth’s shadows would move much more slowly there across a lunar day.
Photographing and looking at the stars from the Moon was not any kind of objective for the Moon missions. After all, they would not have looked any different from they do in Earth orbit or even the Earth’s surface.
However there was actually a Far-Ultraviolet Camera/Spectroscope taken to the Moon on the Apollo 16 mission and astronauts brought the film back with them. This was used to observed celestial bodies in UV wavelengths which cannot pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. I’m not sure why this instrument was taken to the Moon as it would have worked equally in orbit, I know a second one of these devices was fitted to Skylab perhaps Apollo 16 was the only suitable mission at the time.
By the way, all Apollo landings took place during the lunar day so the Sun was blazing down and illuminating the astronaut’s surroundings, so star gazing would have been very tricky.
I’ve noticed that too. And you never seem to find photos of the earth taken from the moon. If it was me up there I would have taken 100’s of photos of the earth – instead of the mind blowingly dull photos they took of the capsule and the car – and the little hills that all look as if they’re made from plasticine
Hi Tim, on most Apollo missions the Earth was high in the sky so doesn’t appear in “landscape” images. Apollo 17 was the exception to this and the astronauts made an effort to include our planet in some of their pictures. Also on Apollo 11 one of the astronauts (probably Armstrong) leaned back to picture Earth over the LM. A similar picture of a crescent Earth was taken on Apollo 14.I hope you’ll agree that here are indeed photos of the Earth from the Moon’s surface taken by the Apollo astronauts. Here are some links:
Earth over LM taken on Apollo 11
Crescent Earth over Apollo 14 LM Antares
Harrison Schmitt with Earth on Apollo 17
Eugene Cernan with Earth on Apollo 17
Note that the Earth seen from the Moon is far smaller than people think, movies and artist’s impressions tend to make it far too big!
I disagree that all the photos taken by the astronauts are dull (they’re photos from another world after all!) The Apollo crews were trained to document the mission by photographing every detail of how their equipment was deployed and used, how and where samples where obtained and so on. Making dramatic images was not a priority (this was probably a mistake), despite this there are some really striking shots of the Moon’s magnificent desolation in the astronauts’ photography, especially from the final three missions. I really recommend the book Full Moon by Michael Light and Andrew Chaikin (1999) which lots of lovely and sometimes rarely seen Apollo imagery.
Judging distances on the Moon, lacking in terrestrial reference points is hard, but do bear in mind some of the “hills” are really respectable mountains in the distance!
The earth is 4 times the size of the moon when viewed from the moon. There are several Apollo photographs that show it to be a lot smaller than that. This is an impossibility.
Dear Mike, I agree that the from the Moon Earth ought to appear four times as wide as the Moon does in Earth’s sky but are you sure that
Can you provide a link to measurements showing this?
Do remember that the Moon is tiny in our sky and note that movies and artists’ impressions with scenes on the Moon’s surface usually grossly exaggerate the apparent size of the Earth.
When I was younger I was a bit of a conspiracy theorist fan, ( a 60’s kid). But now I am all grown up I base my beliefs on information available. The Moon missions are genuine. As mere plebs, we just don’t have the intellect to understand it.
Hi Robert, thanks for your comments. I would disagree with the last sentence though, there’s nothing about any space mission too complex for non-specialist to understand. It’s rather self-defeating to say there is.
Is it true the rover battery is still holding a charge enough to run ?
Hi Dirk, no I think that is untrue.
Thank you for this – I was looking for a decent resource to explain how it was stowed and deployed, and you delivered. Interestingly, yours was the first link that Google provided me with – not NASA – and I’ve never been here before.
So you must be doing something right.
17 months to develop so over 200kg of weight would be added to the mission payload and none of the other Apollo vehicles required a redesign or even added propellant for the LM! Amazing….. . What people will believe!
Dear Mike, thank you for your comment but I think you must have forgotten that Apollos 15-17 were “J series” missions which used an upgraded Lunar Module designed specifically to carry a heavier payload to the Moon (and for a longer stay there).
Comparing the LMs for Apollo 14 and 15, the Apollo 15 LM (with an LRV) carried an extra 1150 lb of propellant and had an improved descent engine. From the earliest stages of the project, it also been intended to take some sort of vehicle to the Moon.
You might enjoy our article NASAò??s Lunar Module: Everything You Need to Know (link).
I believe the tire treads on the LRV were titanium not steel.
Dear Simon, thank you, that is indeed correct. I have fixed the caption and just want to point out that it was me and not Nick who made the original error!
I would really like to know more about the camera and mechanical arm mechanisms used in the Lunar rover. Was solar energy used to power the rover at all times? if not what other energy sources were used? if they did use solar power, which I’m sure they did, what type of battery or cells was the energy stored in?
what types of communication systems were used other than the high-gain antenna?
Dear Lucy, thank you for your questions. You may want to start by studying the Lunar Rover Operations Handbook (link).
The NASA LRV was not solar-powered and did not have a mechanical arm, could you be confusing it with something else?
The LRVs were powered by two 36V Silver-zinc batteries (see page 2 at this link). This information is also in the article you are commenting on.
There was a low gain antenna as well as a high-gain antenna. You can read about them in detail in the Lunar Communications Relay Unit Crew Traning Manual (link).
The TV camera on the LRV was a RCA J-Series Ground-Commanded Television Assembly, you can read about its technical details in this report (link) and this manual (link).
I hope this helps with your research.
My dad worked for an electronic company in Milwaukee, WI and always told me he worked on parts for the lunar rovers, and his name is on a plaque affixed to the river. Is there a way to find this information?
Thank you.
Dear Peter, thanks for your question, unfortunately I don’t know the answer. I have never heard of this before and after searching haven’t seen anything else referring to it, but that doesn’t mean that something like this didn’t happen. I know various interplanetary probes including Mars rovers have carried lists of the names of everyone who worked on the project on microfilm, discs and chips. You could try contacting Boeing (who assembled the LRVs) or the company in Milwaukee which employed your father. I’d be interested to hear if you find out more.
How is it that the drawing of the rover doesn’t indicate the presence of the two batteries? Where were they located?
Dear Tim, thanks for your question. The batteries are located (under a thermal covering) between the two front wheels. Here’s a diagram showing this.
Looking at the diagram in our article, it seems to concentrate on the ancillary gear rather than the rover itself so I assume that’s why the battery location isn’t shown.
Here is a link to the LRV’s manual which may be of interest to you.
I was woundering do you have any info on the other engineers who worked on the buggy as my great uncle who recently passed away worked on this prodject he was an electrical enginer
Dear Sam, I’m sorry but we cannot help you with this. You must know who employed him, perhaps you could contact his former employers directly.
Films and stills of the rovers in motion supposedly on the lunar surface show plumes of dust being thrown up and dust also shown on space suits but in previous discussions admin, whoever you are, stated that there was no blast crater under the LEM or dust on the feet of the LEM because it would not be thrown out due to the lack of gravity. Why the difference in dust dispersal then? No rovers broke down, no LEMs failed to function, no space suits failed, no launches failed, no one died (only the whistle blower Gus and his unfortunate colleagues), just what are the chances, unbelievable!
Semaj, there is so much information now openly available on the moon landings that it is clear how it was achieved. Google and the NASA website is freely accessible online.
Just because you don’t personally understand all the science, technology and mathematics that was employed, doesn’t mean that it is unbelievable or impossible. I came to understand it by examining and learning about the different necessary Apollo systems and mission stages piece by piece. This method may well work for you if you try it.
The USA has had many shameful episodes in its history, but the moon landings were a glorious, positive achievement.
Anyone stating that there is no gravity on the moon is mistaken – it is well known that planets, moons and other bodies in space have their own gravitational fields proportional to their size and density.
Astronauts walking and using the LRV on the lunar surface would have been impossible without the moons (low) gravity. Certainly the LRV would throw up plumes of lunar dust in use – probably more than it would throw up on Earth at the same speed.
Your last argument is still weaker than the others you have raised – the moon landings must have been fake because there were no disasters! A fallacy of begging the question – you are already assuming that success was not a possible outcome, according to you, only faked moon landings or failed real moon landing attempts were possible events.
Sorry I have reread my post and I cannot see where I said the moon landings were fake as there were no disasters. What I did ask was what were the chances? The Russians had lots of disasters. I bet there were a lot of red faces at the Kremlin when they realised the US had smuggled out all the best Nazis! All the information comes from NASA, Google is a search engine, no one from Google has been to the moon unless you know otherwise??
The moon buggy and Jim Irwin with Mount Hadley in the background shows the buggy facing away from the camera and must have driven across the foreground of what was to become this picture. This is determined by the FACT that all buggy photos show the high gain antenna at the front of said buggy, therefore why are there NO tyre tracks visible but plenty of footprints. There are also NO tyre tracks visible from the abandoned buggy/rover either, why is that?
To Oliditi, I understand some science, a lot of technology and some maths, I have to as a qualified engineer! What I do not understand is why people blindly believe a public funded government/military controlled establishment without question. Consider your reply very well because there is the old saying ” if the cap fits wear it”.