Australian-made ‘Roo-ver’ lands spot on Moon mission

Australia’s first lunar rover will be designed and built by the ELO₂ consortium after it beat out a bid by rival group AROSE for the $42 million in federal funding and spot on the NASA mission.

The decision was announced Tuesday after 18 months of design, and secures a place for ELO₂’s ‘Roo-ver’ on the historic moonshot later this decade and is a potential boon for a local robotics sector the government sees as a future economic driver.

Australia has committed to supplying a semi-autonomous rover to the US-led international mission to collect lunar soil and build other capabilities. The mission aims to create a sustainable human presence on the moon and subsequent efforts to reach Mars.

The 21-strong ELO₂ consortium is co-led by robotics and defence supplier EPE and US space tech firm Lunar Outpost’s local arm. It includes several Australian universities, mining giant BHP and local space startups.

It was selected along with AROSE last March to design early-stage prototypes of a semi-autonomous rover and had been vying for the $42 million funding and spot as the supplier to the Australian Space Agency.

The ELO₂ consortium unveiled an early prototype in late 2023 and its latest version in March this year, in what has become one of the most advanced robotics projects in the country.

“This project is as much about the journey as the destination,” Australian Space Agency head Enrico Palermo said.

“Australia is gaining valuable knowledge and technical skill just from developing Roo-ver, creating opportunity to become an even bigger part of the global space sector.”

Roo-ver is expected to collect lunar soil samples that NASA will experiment on to extract oxygen, a key to the Artemis program’s plan to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon.

The oxygen could be used to produce rocket fuel in support of mars missions launched from the moon.

The selection of the Roo-ver comes at the expense of the Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE) consortium, which also received prototype funding last year.

The 23-member AROSE consortium also includes global and local space techs, Australian universities, and mining giants, as well as the Western Australian government.

Industry minister Ed Husic announced the selection of ELO₂ and its rover on Tuesday.

“The team behind Roo-ver are creating capability and technologies that land back down to Earth and advance many of the industries we rely on,” Mr Husic said in a statement.

“It’s also helping keep our best talent here in Australia, with several STEM graduates already hired direct from universities for the project.”

Earlier this year, Mr Husic released a national robotics strategy that set lofty goals for lifting production and uptake of the technologies. The strategy said automation could add an extra $170 billion to $600 billion per year to the Australian economy by 2030.

The full ELO₂ consortium:

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