NASA’s Artemis astronauts will travel to the massive Space Launch System rocket in a fleet of shiny crew transportation vehicles.
The futuristic pod-shaped transport vehicles were developed for NASA by Canoo Technologies from Bentonville, Arkansas, based on its electric LV models.
The new vehicle will be used when Artemis II astronauts will leave their crew quarters at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for their lunar mission in 2024.
Artemis II is the second mission in the Artemis program and the first with a crew onboard the Orion capsule as it travels to the moon and back.
It is expected to be launched by the massive 323ft NASA Space Launch System (SLS) in May 2024, after an uncrewed test launch this year.
It will take the four-person fully suited crew of astronauts and their support time on the nine-mile stretch of road from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to the launch pad – known as Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center.
The vehicles are required to accommodate eight, including four fully suited crew members. This will use zero-emissions technology for the next generation of explorers.
The most visible use of the Artemis crew transportation vehicles will be to carry crew from the Astronaut Crew Quarters to Launch Pad 39B.
Canoo will deliver the fleet to the spaceport no later than June 2023 to support these operations – ahead of launch in May 2024 and then the first landing in 2025.
NASA’s Artemis missions will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. This will then lead NASA to send the first astronauts to Mars by the end of the next decade.
