Conceptual Design of the Lunar Pressurized Rover Thermal Control System

This paper presents an overview of the thermal control system of the Pressurized Rover developed by JAXA and Toyota for lunar surface exploration. The Pressurized Rover is being developed to be the world's first lunar rover system that allows astronauts to travel on the Moon’s surface without space suit, expanding the area of human activities in future lunar exploration. The Pressurized Rover’s Thermal Control System (TCS) is responsible for keeping its structure, components and internal environment within the desired temperature, assuring a habitable environment and appropriate operation of the rover. The thermal environment of the rover highly varies depending on the lunar day and night as well as operational modes of the rover. Lunar surface temperature on the Moon poles, where pressurized rover is planned to be deployed, varies at night and day. Additionally, the rover’s heat exhaustion highly alters depending on its operations, crewed and uncrewed or driving and parking. In this paper we describe the results of the feasibility study and conceptual design of the rover’s TCS - especially focusing on its active thermal control system (ATCS).