384 000 km
from Earth
129.78°E
-89.67°S
On Monday 19 June, Venturi Group presented its latest invention at the international Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, France: a hyper-deformable Lunar wheel. Venturi Lab designed and manufactured the wheel using materials it created. The Venturi wheel is a world first.
A turning point in the history of the space industry, Venturi has reinvented the wheel. Engineers, chemists and physicists at Venturi Lab in Fribourg, Switzerland have created a unique hyper-deformable lunar wheel.
The wheel will be used on Venturi Astrolab’s rover, a spacecraft that will be deposited on the Moon in 2026 by Space X’s Starship rocket and initially used to transport payloads.
In the past, with the exception of the Apollo missions, space exploration vehicles have always been equipped with rigid wheels. The Venturi wheel, however, is highly malleable while remaining long-lasting and robust.
From 2026, when the rover FLEX is put into service at the lunar South Pole, where extreme temperatures (-240 to +130°C) prevail, the four wheels supporting the two-tonne vehicle (payload included) will warp in order to absorb ground irregularities as the rover travels at 15 km/h. The wheels will need to perform over at least 1,000 kilometres and resist strong radiation from the South Pole.
Features of the Venturi wheel include:
– an exceptional diameter of 930 mm
– a complex system of 192 cables that act as spokes
– a tread made flexible by a newly invented material
– an outer rim equipped with springs
This breakthrough technology, based on unique materials, is equal in importance to the arrival of the rubber, and later pneumatic rimmed tyre in the 19th century.
NASA has selected Venturi Astrolab to test and analyse the Venturi wheel at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The American company SpaceX will be responsible for transporting the rover, which will be the largest and most capable in the history of lunar vehicles. SpaceX will use its Starship launch and landing system to transport the astromobile to the lunar surface.
Gildo Pastor, President of the Monegasque company Venturi Space, welcomed HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, the first person to have driven a rover on the Moon and Commander of the Apollo 15 mission General David Scott, and astronaut Jean-François Clervoy.
Venturi Space, and Venturi Astrolab, Inc. (Astrolab) announced their collaboration to produce a lunar rover, designed to respond to the growing number of institutional, businesses and scientific organizations in the U.S. and European markets, that are seeking access to the Moon for smaller payloads.
