Michelin is revealing the airless lunar wheel prototype it has produced to meet the tender brief NASA’s Artemis programme at Le Mans 24 Hours 2024 . The objective of NASA’s Artemis programme is to explore the Moon’s south pole, where no human has ever been, in order to acquire scientific data and search for water in the form of ice.
A name still unfamiliar to many, The Smart Tire Company (STC) is commercialising NASA’s non-pneumatic tyre technology. It is working with vehicle manufacturers to produce shape memory alloy tyres for cars and has launched a second generation of its airless bicycle tyre. In addition to developing products for use here on Earth, STC intends to send tyres to the Moon as part of NASA’s Project Artemis.
This week marks the 53rd anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the surface of the Moon, a date of particular significance for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Goodyear supplied a number of essential components for this history-making mission and later developed non-pneumatic tyres for the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle. The tyre maker is once again looking spacewards and is developing tyres for a lunar vehicle that in future may extend commercialism to the Earth’s rocky satellite.
US start-up Orbis Brakes has launched brake technology developed in partnership with NASA which uses “advanced aerodynamics to provide superior surface cooling, reduce dangerous brake fade, and extend vehicle range and fuel efficiency.” The first product in Orbis Brakes’ Periodic Wave disc brake line will arrive in the third quarter of the year and is expected to “change the standard for price, performance, safety, and sustainability.”
One giant leap for Michelin. The French tyre maker has taken on the challenge to develop an airless tyre to equip the future Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV). It is working on this project in conjunction with the team formed by Northrop Grumman within the framework of a tender from NASA last November. The aim for the Michelin R&D teams is to make a tyre capable of resisting the extreme conditions at the lunar pole in order to explore the lunar surface and allow a sustainable presence on the Moon in 2025, and ultimately on Mars.
Scientists at NASA’s Glenn Research centre are offering a non-pneumatic tyre up for licence as part the space agency’s technology transfer programme.
The “superelastic” tyre was developed for future Mars missions but is said to be a viable alternative to pneumatic tyres here on Earth. This technology represents the latest evolution of the spring tyre which was invented by NASA Glenn and Goodyear, and inspired by the Apollo lunar tyres.
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