How’s it holding up? NASA

A planned private mission to the moon could revisit the spot where astronauts last roamed its surface.

German-based PTScientists says it will land a pair of rovers, designed with the help of car firm Audi, near the Apollo 17 landing site and check out the lunar buggy left behind by NASA during its final mission to the moon in 1972.

“Has it been ripped to shreds by micrometeorids, or is it still standing there like on the day they left?” says Karsen Becker, the team’s rover driver. “This is scientifically a very interesting site for us.”


PTScientists is taking part in the Google Lunar X Prize, a race to get the first privately funded rover on the moon. There are currently 16 teams in the running, though only some, including PTScientists, have a contract in place to launch their rovers before the competition deadline at the end of 2017 – a date that has been pushed back numerous times from the original end of 2012.

Becker says the team has booked a flight through launch broker Spaceflight Industries and hopes to share a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket by late 2017, or early 2018.

Lunar conditions

Studying the current state of the buggy should teach us more about the effect of long-term exposure to the harsh lunar conditions.

NASA guidelines suggest that moon missions should land at least 2 kilometres away from any Apollo heritage sites, and not approach within 200 metres. Becker says they will land at a distance of 3 to 4 kilometres and drive to within 200 metres to study the buggy remotely.

The team’s rovers have a camera equipped with three lenses that will allow them to zoom in and image the buggy in different wavelengths.

Becker says the team also wants to repeat gravity measurements made by the astronauts at the Apollo 17 site. “There are some data points that look a bit funky, no one knows whether it was a misreading or what actually happened,” he says. Confirming the readings could reveal the presence of a lava tube tunnel beneath the surface.

Other planned experiments include firing a laser at the lunar soil, fusing it together in a test of future 3D printing technology, and attempting to grow a plant in a container attached to the rover.