Avr 15

Michelin Lunar Wheel

How the tire maker is applying its high-tech material expertise to design tires for a lunar rover.

The Moon is not a good place for terrestrial tires. Its surface is tough and consistently bombarded with a cocktail of solar and galactic radiation. Temperatures easily fluctuate from boiling highs to extreme lows.

It’s the most inhospitable environment humans have ever visited, let alone driven a vehicle. And yet, when we return over the next decade, we will invariably need a way to get around the dusty, cratered surface.

The Michelin Group has set its sights on engineering the tires for a rover.

To Michelin, extraterrestrial exploration presents an opportunity to push the limits of human design, material endurance and performance, fundamentally redefining what we consider a tire to be.

“Space exploration is a field in which all types of sciences, like biology, mechanics, and physics – come together,” says Robert Radulescu, a technical fellow for the Michelin Group based in Greenville, South Carolina, at Michelin’s research and development center. “Michelin wants to participate very early in the action of a space conquest that projects human beings into a permanent settlement on the Moon and beyond.”

Its prototype, the Michelin Lunar Wheel, is an airless wheel created in partnership with Northrop Grumman and AVL. It’s designed to withstand the extreme conditions of the lunar pole and enable exploration of the lunar surface for the establishment of a sustainable presence both on the Moon and, eventually, Mars.

The design sits at the intersection of material and structure, putting the company at the apex of the extraterrestrial unknown. But the innovation is closely linked to Earthly ambitions as well. …

Source: CBC/Michelin