Toyota Heading to Moon with Cruiser, Robotic Arms, Dreams

Associated PressPublished: January 28, 2022

FILE PHOTO: TANEGASHIMA, JAPAN - FEBRUARY 28: In this handout image from NASA, A Japanese H-IIA rocket with the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory onboard, is seen on launch pad 1 of the Tanegashima Space Center on February 28, 2014 in Tanegashima, Japan. Once launched, the GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)

By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota says it's working with Japan's space agency on a vehicle to explore the lunar surface, with ambitions to help people live on the moon by 2040 and eventually live on Mars.

The vehicle being developed with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is called Lunar Cruiser, whose name pays homage to the Toyota Land Cruiser sport utility vehicle. Its launch is set for the late 2020's.

Takao Sato, who heads the Lunar Cruiser project at Toyota, told The Associated Press the company sees "space as an area for our once-in-a-century transformation."

An executive whose company developed a robotic arm for the cruiser says robots come in handy for working in space, which holds dangers for astronauts.

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