Goodyear to supply tires to GM, Lockheed Martin mobility vehicle for lunar travel

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company already has experience in making tires for trips in space. In fact, it has teamed up with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration twice - during NASA’s Surveyor Program in 1966 and in Apollo 11 mission in 1969.

Now Goodyear is bringing its decades of experience to the next-gen lunar mobility vehicles and will be supplying its tires to General Motors and Lockheed Martin, which are developing their LMVs. The deal will mark the return of Goodyear tires to the Moon.

The said automaker and the aerospace company are creating a lunar mobility vehicle that will be utilized in moving cargo and astronauts in NASA’s Artemis program around the surface of the Moon. The LMV was designed with autonomous driving ability, and it will be powered by General Motor’s Ultium EV platform.

For this vehicle, Goodyear tires are designed to withstand extreme temperatures in one-sixth gravity of the Moon’s surface, which also features a crater-filled terrain. The LMV will take advantage of the tiremaker’s advanced airless tire technology to bolster lunar mobility and bear up against the challenging conditions in lunar space.

As per Fox Business, Goodyear is currently trying out its tires in lunar soil test beds. The engineers designing the tires will also review the advanced driver-in-the-loop simulator that was used in the development of the Chevrolet Corvette and GMC Hummer electric vehicle pickup to understand how a rover and its advanced tires work on rough crater-filled terrain of the Moon.

Goodyear also noted that future lunar missions would require rubber tires that can navigate through rugged terrain while also operating in high temperatures for much longer distances. The company said the intensity of heat could go between minus 280 degrees and 260 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Everything we learn from making tires for the Moon’s extremely difficult operating environment will help us make better airless tires on Earth,” Goodyear’s senior vice president for global operations and chief technology officer, Chris Helsel, said in a press release. “This will contribute to our end goal of enabling mobility no matter where it takes place. Just as important, it is an honor to write history with this prestigious company that knows how to make giant leaps in exploration and mobility.”