page_title: Lunar Roving Vehicle
section_title: Early lunar mobility studies
hierarchical_section_title: Lunar Roving Vehicle / History / Early lunar mobility studies
caption_attribution_description: English: Driving Distances by rovers on Mars and the Moon. Includes (from oldest to newest): Lunokhod 1, Apollo 15 Lunar Rover, Apollo 16 Lunar Rover, Apollo 17 Lunar Rover, Lunokhod 2, Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Yutu-1. Figures are accurate as of 13 February 2019. Additional information: Knapp, Alex&#32;(29 July 2014).&#32;"NASA's Opportunity Rover Sets A Record For Off-World Driving". Forbes. Wall, Mike&#32;(29 July 2014).&#32;"NASA's Mars rover Opportunity breaks off-world driving record". CBS News. Yutu: Qunzhi, Li&#32;(2014).&#32;A Priority Method of Cruise Direction for the Lunar Rover.&#32;65th International Astronomical Congress. 29 September-3 October 2014. Toronto, Canada. Sojourner: Sojourner.&#32;Michigan State University. Retrieved on 27 December 2014.
context_page_description: The Lunar Roving Vehicle is a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the American Apollo program during 1971 and 1972. They are popularly known as "Moon buggies", a play on the words "dune buggy".
  Built by Boeing, each LRV has a mass of 460 pounds without payload. It could carry a maximum payload mass of 1,080 pounds including two astronauts, equipment, and lunar samples; and was designed for a top speed of 8 miles per hour, although it actually achieved a top speed of 11.2 miles per hour on its last mission, Apollo 17. They were transported to the Moon folded up in the Lunar Module's Quadrant 1 Bay. After being unpacked, they were driven an average distance of 30 km on each of the three missions, without major incident.
  These three LRVs remain on the Moon.
context_section_description: In the February 1964 issue of Popular Science, von Braun, then director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), discussed the need for a lunar surface vehicle, and revealed that studies had been underway at Marshall in conjunction with Lockheed, Bendix, Boeing, General Motors, Brown Engineering, Grumman, and Bell Aerospace.
  Beginning in the early 1960s, a series of studies centering on lunar mobility were conducted under Marshall. This began with the lunar logistics system (LLS), followed by the mobility laboratory (MOLAB), then the lunar scientific survey module (LSSM), and finally the mobility test article (MTA). In early planning for the Apollo program, it had been assumed that two Saturn V launch vehicles would be used for each lunar mission: one for sending the crew aboard a Lunar Surface Module (LSM) to lunar orbit, landing, and returning, and a second for sending an LSM-Truck (LSM-T) with all of the equipment, supplies, and transport vehicle for use by the crew while on the surface. All of the first Marshall studies were based on this dual-launch assumption, allowing a large, heavy, roving vehicle.
  Grumman and Northrop, in the fall of 1962, began to design pressurized-cabin vehicles, with electric motors for each wheel. At about this same time Bendix and Boeing started their own internal studies on lunar transportation systems. Mieczysław Bekker, now with General Motors Defense Research Laboratories at Santa Barbara, California, was completing a study for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a small, uncrewed lunar roving vehicle for the Surveyor program. Ferenc Pavlics, originally from Hungary, used a wire-mesh design for "resilient wheels," a design that would be followed in future small rovers.
  In early 1963, NASA selected Marshall for studies in an Apollo Logistics Support System (ALSS). Following reviews of all earlier efforts, this resulted in a 10-volume report. Included was the need for a pressurized vehicle in the 6,490–8,470 lb (2,940–3,840 kg) weight range, accommodating two men with their expendables and instruments for traverses up to two weeks in duration. In June 1964, Marshall awarded contracts to Bendix and to Boeing, with GM's lab designated as the vehicle technology subcontractor. Bell Aerospace was already under contract for studies of Lunar Flying Vehicles.
  Even as the Bendix and Boeing studies were underway, Marshall was examining a less ambitious surface exploration activity, the LSSM. This would be composed of a fixed, habitable shelter–laboratory with a small lunar-traversing vehicle that could either carry one man or be remotely controlled. This mission would still require a dual launch with the moon vehicle carried on the "lunar truck". Marshall's Propulsion and Vehicle Engineering (P&VE) lab contracted with Hayes International to make a preliminary study of the shelter and its related vehicle.  Because of the potential need for an enclosed vehicle for enlarged future lunar explorations, those design efforts continued for some time, and resulted in several full-scale test vehicles.
  With pressure from Congress to hold down Apollo costs, Saturn V production was reduced, allowing only a single launch per mission. Any roving vehicle would have to fit on the same lunar module as the astronauts. In November 1964, two-rocket models were put on indefinite hold, but Bendix and Boeing were given study contracts for small rovers. The name of the lunar excursion module was changed to simply the lunar module, indicating that the capability for powered "excursions" away from a lunar-lander base did not yet exist. There could be no mobile lab — the astronauts would work out of the LM. Marshall continued to also examine uncrewed robotic rovers that could be controlled from the Earth.
  From the beginnings at Marshall, the Brown Engineering Company of Huntsville, Alabama had participated in all of the lunar mobility efforts. In 1965, Brown became the prime support contractor for Marshall's P&VE Laboratory. With an urgent need to determine the feasibility of a two-man self-contained lander, von Braun 
caption: Comparison of distances driven by various wheeled vehicles on the surface of the Moon and Mars
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