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Space Robotics

Canadian Lunar Rover

Program pages Canadian Space Agency: Canadian lunar rover mission Canadensys Aerospace: Canadian Lunar Rover

Overview

Section titled “Overview”

The Canadian Lunar Rover is a solar-powered micro-rover being built by Canadensys Aerospace under contract to the Canadian Space Agency, to be delivered to the lunar south polar region on a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight [1], [2]. It is the flagship of the Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program, one of three initiatives funded by the Canadian government’s 2019 commitment of $2.05 billion alongside Canadarm3 for the Lunar Gateway and an education program, and it will be the first Canadian-led planetary exploration mission.

Canadensys was selected as prime contractor in November 2022, the preliminary design review was completed in June 2024, and the project entered Phase C in July 2024 [1]. The science team is led from the University of Western Ontario, with instruments from Canadensys, Bubble Technology Industries and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

The mission has three high-level objectives, in the order the team states them: demonstrate and characterize Canadian technology on the lunar surface, perform meaningful science, and increase the Canadian space sector’s readiness for later lunar missions [3], [4]. The rover is to traverse away from its landing site into intermittently and permanently shadowed areas, and the specific engineering claim made for it is that it would be the first solar-only rover to survive the lunar night [2].

Specifications

Section titled “Specifications”
ParameterValueSource
Massabout 42 kg[2]
Volumeabout 0.4 m3
Powersolar
Science instruments6[1]
Additional cameras2 panoramic, 1 hazard
Permanently shadowed region endurance goalup to 1 hour
Night survival goalat least one lunar night

Wheel count, suspension, drive speed, slope limit, obstacle capability, ground pressure, generation capacity, battery capacity, processor and communications parameters are not published in any of the mission’s own abstracts. The mass has moved across those abstracts, from 30 kg in 2023 and 2024 through 35 kg in 2025 to about 42 kg in the agency’s 2026 statement, with no explanation of the change [1], [2], [3], [4].

Mission profile

Section titled “Mission profile”
ParameterValueSource
DeliveryNASA CLPS flight awarded to Firefly Aerospace[2]
Launch2029
Destinationlunar south polar region
Durationmultiple lunar days

The delivery date has moved with the program: no earlier than late 2026 in 2023, no earlier than 2026 in the agency’s 2024 statement, and 2029 with a named provider in 2026 [2], [4], [5]. A separate and much larger Canadian vehicle, the Lunar Utility Vehicle, is on a different track: a ten-year design life, concept study contracts awarded to Canadensys, MDA Space and Mission Control in July 2025, and launch no earlier than 2033 [2].

One constraint shaped the design from the start. The landing site was to be chosen only after the mission and its instruments were selected, and high landing accuracy could not be assumed from the small commercial landers then in development, so the rover had to be designed without knowing precisely where it would be put down [3], [4]. Site selection has since narrowed to 13 candidate areas of 5 by 5 km, chosen to maximize operating time while staying close to modeled near-surface ice stability [1].

Mobility

Section titled “Mobility”

Not published. None of the mission’s five abstracts states a wheel count, suspension type, drive speed, gradeability, obstacle height or ground pressure, and no terramechanics result appears. What is published about mobility is the objective: traverse away from the landing site into intermittently and permanently shadowed areas [2].

Power and energy

Section titled “Power and energy”

Solar only [2]. No generation figure, battery capacity or duty cycle is published. The absence matters, because both distinguishing capabilities claimed for the vehicle are energy problems: operating for up to an hour inside a permanently shadowed region, where there is no sunlight, and surviving a lunar night without a radioisotope heater unit [1].

Thermal

Section titled “Thermal”

No temperature limits, heater strategy or radiator design is published. Night survival and the permanently shadowed region excursion are stated as goals rather than as analyzed or tested capability [1].

Compute and avionics

Section titled “Compute and avionics”

Not published. A Teledyne UDOS007 micro-dosimeter hybrid microcircuit records total ionizing dose in silicon through the mission, but that is a science instrument rather than a statement about the avionics it sits beside [1], [5].

Autonomy

Section titled “Autonomy”

The stereo camera pair generates three-dimensional information used for navigation, and the hazard camera is described as being used primarily for navigation as well as for target identification [1]. No onboard autonomous navigation, hazard detection or fault response is described in any of the published material.

Communications

Section titled “Communications”

Not published.

Payload and instruments

Section titled “Payload and instruments”
InstrumentProviderFunctionSource
StereoCamCanadensysnavigation ranging and three-band color science[1]
Multispectral ImagerCanadensysregolith and rock mineralogy within about 1 m of the front of the rover
NISA-1000Canadensyssingle infrared band for water ice and mafic mineral detection
LHANSBubble Technology Industrieshydrogen as a proxy for water ice, plus Ti, Fe, Ca, P, K, Th, U by gamma ray
Radiation Micro-DosimeterTeledyne sensor, BTI and Canadensys integrationtotal ionizing dose in silicon along the traverse[1], [5]
LAFORGEJohns Hopkins APL, furnished by NASAmultispectral thermal infrared imaging radiometer[1]

The camera geometry is given in design detail. The stereo pair sits near the top of the rover with a 40 cm horizontal separation, each camera covering 144 degrees horizontally by 104 degrees vertically and pitched 20 degrees below horizontal; the multispectral imager looks forward and down at 45 degrees, covering 35 by 26 degrees and reaching about a meter ahead, illuminated by six LED pairs from 365 to 950 nm; NISA-1000 covers 26 by 20 degrees pitched 14 degrees down; the two panoramic cameras cover 186 by 186 degrees each; and the hazard camera is mounted low, forward, at 45 degrees below horizontal [1], [2]. The 2024 abstract gives a stereo separation of about 30 cm and fields of roughly 140 by 100 degrees, and the change is not noted [3].

LAFORGE is the instrument the rover carries for another agency under a CSA-NASA agreement. It is specified for accuracy at the low end of the lunar temperature range, better than 5 K at 40 K and 2 K at 65 K, which is the range that matters inside a permanently shadowed region [1].

The instrument complement is not the one the mission started with. The 2023 abstract lists a FROST suite including a Lyman-alpha instrument and a close-up imager, which were replaced during Phase B [1], [4].

Modes of operation

Section titled “Modes of operation”

Not published as a set. The operations described are traverse with imaging, hydrogen and elemental mapping along the traverse, thermal imaging during the first lunar day, and excursions into shadowed areas of up to an hour [1], [2].

Ground operations

Section titled “Ground operations”

Not published.

Technologies developed

Section titled “Technologies developed”

The mission’s first objective is technology demonstration rather than science, and the capability it is built to demonstrate is night survival on solar power alone in a 42 kg vehicle, together with a short excursion into a permanently shadowed region [1], [2]. Both remain claims: no supporting analysis, thermal model or test result has been published.

What has been published is an instrument set designed around a common camera platform. Four of the six science instruments and all three engineering cameras are built from the same Nano-Compatible Immersive Situational Awareness imager, differentiated by optics, filters and illumination rather than by detector: a stereo pair for ranging and color, a panchromatic unit with six LED pairs for multispectral work, a long-pass infrared unit for water ice, and wide-field units for panorama and hazard detection [1], [2].

References

Section titled “References”

References

  1. Osinski, G. R., Edmundson, P., Hackett, J., Newman, J., Visscher, P., Cloutis, E. A., Lemelin, M., Morisset, C.-E., Picard, M., Greenhagen, B. T., Cahill, J. T. S., MacEwan, S. J. and Smith, M. B. (2023). The Canadian Lunar Rover Mission (LRM): A Micro-Rover Mission to the South Pole of the Moon, 2487. Source
    BibTeX
    @inproceedings{osinski2023canadian,
  title = {The Canadian Lunar Rover Mission (LRM): A Micro-Rover Mission to the South Pole of the Moon},
  author = {Osinski, G. R. and Edmundson, P. and Hackett, J. and Newman, J. and Visscher, P. and Cloutis, E. A. and Lemelin, M. and Morisset, C.-E. and Picard, M. and Greenhagen, B. T. and Cahill, J. T. S. and MacEwan, S. J. and Smith, M. B.},
  year = {2023},
  booktitle = {54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference},
  number = {2487},
  url = {https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2023/pdf/2487.pdf}
}
  2. Osinski, G. R., Edmundson, P., Cloutis, E. A., Lemelin, M., Morisset, C.-E., Picard, M., Lamarche, T., Greenhagen, B. T., Smith, M. B., Harrison, T., Hackett, J., Newman, J., Cahill, J. T. S., Colaprete, T., Cunje, A., Daly, M., Flemming, R., Hardgrove, C., Herd, C. D. K., Neish, C. D., Preston, L., Siegler, M., Sirek, A., Tornabene, L. L. and Williams, D. (2024). The Canadian Lunar Rover: An Update, 1728. Source
    BibTeX
    @inproceedings{osinski2024canadian,
  title = {The Canadian Lunar Rover: An Update},
  author = {Osinski, G. R. and Edmundson, P. and Cloutis, E. A. and Lemelin, M. and Morisset, C.-E. and Picard, M. and Lamarche, T. and Greenhagen, B. T. and Smith, M. B. and Harrison, T. and Hackett, J. and Newman, J. and Cahill, J. T. S. and Colaprete, T. and Cunje, A. and Daly, M. and Flemming, R. and Hardgrove, C. and Herd, C. D. K. and Neish, C. D. and Preston, L. and Siegler, M. and Sirek, A. and Tornabene, L. L. and Williams, D.},
  year = {2024},
  booktitle = {55th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference},
  number = {1728},
  url = {https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1728.pdf}
}
  3. Osinski, G. R., Cloutis, E. A., Lemelin, M., Edmundson, P., Morisset, C.-E., Picard, M., Lamarche, T., Greenhagen, B. T., Smith, M. B., Tornabene, L. L., Cahill, J. T. S., Colaprete, T., Cunje, A., Daly, M., Donaldson Hanna, K., Elder, C., Flemming, R., Hackett, J., Hardgrove, C., Herd, C. D. K., Lees, D., Lim, D., MacEwan, S. J., Mirmalek, Z., Neish, C. D., Newman, J., Preston, L., Siegler, M., Sirek, A. and Williams, D. (2025). The Canadian Lunar Rover Mission to the South Polar Region of the Moon: A Status Report, 2221. Source
    BibTeX
    @inproceedings{osinski2025canadian,
  title = {The Canadian Lunar Rover Mission to the South Polar Region of the Moon: A Status Report},
  author = {Osinski, G. R. and Cloutis, E. A. and Lemelin, M. and Edmundson, P. and Morisset, C.-E. and Picard, M. and Lamarche, T. and Greenhagen, B. T. and Smith, M. B. and Tornabene, L. L. and Cahill, J. T. S. and Colaprete, T. and Cunje, A. and Daly, M. and Donaldson Hanna, K. and Elder, C. and Flemming, R. and Hackett, J. and Hardgrove, C. and Herd, C. D. K. and Lees, D. and Lim, D. and MacEwan, S. J. and Mirmalek, Z. and Neish, C. D. and Newman, J. and Preston, L. and Siegler, M. and Sirek, A. and Williams, D.},
  year = {2025},
  booktitle = {56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference},
  number = {2221},
  url = {https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2025/pdf/2221.pdf}
}
  4. Morisset, C. E., Bergeron, M., Haltigin, T., Hill, P., Lamarche, T., Lange, C., Moroso, F., Picard, M. and Saint-Jacques, D. (2024). Canada's Rover Development for Lunar Surface Exploration, 5021. Source
    BibTeX
    @inproceedings{csa2024canada,
  title = {Canada's Rover Development for Lunar Surface Exploration},
  author = {Morisset, C. E. and Bergeron, M. and Haltigin, T. and Hill, P. and Lamarche, T. and Lange, C. and Moroso, F. and Picard, M. and Saint-Jacques, D.},
  year = {2024},
  booktitle = {Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group},
  number = {5021},
  url = {https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/leag2024/pdf/5021.pdf}
}
  5. Morisset, C.-E., Haltigin, T., Hill, P., Picard, M., Lamarche, T., Hamilton, D., Moroso, F., Sevigny, J., Podwalski, K. and Saint-Jacques, D. (2026). Updates on Canada's Rover Development for the Lunar South Pole, 4019. Source
    BibTeX
    @inproceedings{csa2026updates,
  title = {Updates on Canada's Rover Development for the Lunar South Pole},
  author = {Morisset, C.-E. and Haltigin, T. and Hill, P. and Picard, M. and Lamarche, T. and Hamilton, D. and Moroso, F. and Sevigny, J. and Podwalski, K. and Saint-Jacques, D.},
  year = {2026},
  booktitle = {Ices in the Solar System},
  number = {4019},
  url = {https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/ices2026/pdf/4019.pdf}
}

Further reading