Tire giant Bridgestone Corp. is teaming up with Teledyne Brown Engineering to build lunar tires for NASA’s crewed lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) for future exploration of the moon.
Teledyne is designing and building the LTV, which will be expected to endure extreme temperatures and harsh environments for long periods of time to support crew mobility and research efforts. Teledyne’s other partners include Nissan North America, Sierra Space and Textron.
Teledyne said the agreement will help to build a durable vehicle that will be a product of this collaboration.
Bridgestone has been in the tire business since 1931 and the partnership will help NASA to explore the moon and beyond. The company started researching tires for crewed lunar vehicles in 2019. To ensure tire function and safety under difficult operating conditions, Bridgestone is developing and validating metal airless tire concepts. It is leveraging its road contact technology from experiences on roads worldwide to build the new tires.
Bridgestone has been working on tires that are outside of the norm for years including a few years ago bringing an airless and wirelessly connected prototype tires for e-bikes and vehicles to CES.
