Goodyear's non-pneumatic lunar tyre can carry higher loads

ERJ staff report (DS)

Akron, Ohio -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company have developed an airless tyre to transport large, long-range vehicles across the surface of the moon.

NASA said the technology might transfer to more terrestrial applications.

The tyre has a metallic mesh outer skin and an internal structure using 800 load bearing springs. Goodyear did not say whether these are made from metal or some other material.

According to Vivake Asnani, NASA's principal investigator at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, “With the combined requirements of increased load and life, we needed to make a fundamental change to the original moon tire,” he said. “What the Goodyear-NASA team developed is an innovative, yet simple network of interwoven springs that does the job. The tire design seems almost obvious in retrospect, as most good inventions do.”

NASA highlighted the project during NASA's recent “Day on the Hill” exhibit at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC. “I spoke with 10 to 15 members of Congress and about sixty staffers,” noted NASA's Asnani. “Virtually everyone I spoke with was blown away by the idea that this technology may one day be used, not only for extraterrestrial vehicles, but also, perhaps, for vehicles here on Earth.”

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Press release from Goodyear