Lunar Vertex rover

Overview

The Lunar Vertex rover is the mobile half of Lunar Vertex, the first delivery under NASA’s Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon program, bound for Reiner Gamma on the Intuitive Machines IM-3 lander [1]. The vehicle is a variant of Lunar Outpost’s Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform, built by Lunar Outpost and operated by them on the surface; the Applied Physics Laboratory integrated the science instruments into it and carried out environmental testing on the assembled system.

The rover exists because the investigation cannot be done from one place. Reiner Gamma is a crustal magnetic anomaly colocated with the type example of a lunar swirl, and the competing explanations for both, an ancient dynamo against impact- or plasma-related processes, are separated by how the magnetic field varies across the anomaly and by what the regolith looks like away from the lander [2]. A fixed payload measures one point.

The chassis arrived at APL in spring 2023, instrument integration and environmental testing followed, and the integrated rover was delivered to Intuitive Machines in January 2024 [1].

Specifications

Parameter	Value	Source
Chassis	Lunar Outpost MAPP variant	[1]
Magnetometer mast height	20 cm
Rover instruments	2
Surface mission duration	10 to 13 Earth days

No mass, dimensions, wheel diameter, drive speed, slope limit, obstacle capability, power, battery capacity, processor or communications parameter for this vehicle appears in the Lunar Vertex publications. The traverse distance frequently attributed to it is not in them either. What is published about the chassis belongs to the MAPP product line rather than to this flight unit.

Mission profile

Parameter	Value	Source
Delivery	Intuitive Machines, CLPS CP-11, third IM lander	[1]
Landing site	Reiner Gamma, 7.585 N, 58.725 W
Arrival	shortly after local sunrise
Mission duration	10 to 13 Earth days, ending at sunset
Night survival	none, by design

The lander and the whole payload are designed for one lunar daylight period. Arrival shortly after sunrise and an end 10 to 13 Earth days later is the entire operating window, which sets the traverse the rover has to complete and removes any need for night survival hardware [1].

Mobility

Four wheels, from the MAPP product line [1]. The Lunar Vertex publications state nothing further: no suspension description, speed, gradeability, obstacle height or terramechanics result appears in them.

Power and energy

Solar, as a property of the chassis. No generation or storage figure is published for this vehicle, and none is needed for night survival, which is not attempted [1].

Thermal

Not published. Environmental testing of the integrated rover is mentioned without a single condition or result [1].

Compute and avionics

Not published.

Autonomy

Not described in the Lunar Vertex publications. Autonomous navigation is a claim made for the MAPP product line, not a measured property of this vehicle.

Communications

Not published. The rover operates within range of the lander during a single daylight period.

Payload and instruments

Instrument	Provider	Function	Source
Vector Magnetometer-Rover	Johns Hopkins APL	tetrahedral array of four commercial fluxgate sensors on a 20 cm mast	[1]
Rover Multispectral Microscope	Canadensys Aerospace	close-up imaging of soil texture, and reflectance at five ultraviolet to near-infrared LED wavelengths for composition and maturity

The tetrahedral array is a gradiometer arrangement: four sensors at known separations let the rover’s own magnetic signature be distinguished from the field it is there to measure. The same design is used on the lander, where four commercial fluxgates sit at the base of a 0.5 m mast beneath a science-grade dual ring-core magnetometer at the top [1]. The rover carries the commercial array alone, on a much shorter mast, and its value is the second measurement point rather than the better sensor.

The microscope is mounted inside the rover body rather than on an arm or a mast, so its working distance is fixed by the vehicle’s ground clearance [1].

Modes of operation

Not published.

Ground operations

Lunar Outpost operates the rover on the Moon [1]. No planning cycle or tooling is described, and the operating window is short enough that the traverse plan is effectively fixed before landing.

Technologies developed

The result this vehicle is built to produce is scientific rather than engineering: a magnetic field profile measured at more than one point across a crustal anomaly, with colocated close-up regolith imaging, which is what separates the competing origin hypotheses for lunar swirls [2]. The engineering point of interest is the arrangement itself, a small commercial rover chassis bought as a product and used as an instrument carrier by a laboratory that built neither the vehicle nor the lander, with the vehicle’s builder operating it on the surface [1].

References