World first: engineers create hyper-deformable lunar wheel

Venturi Lab designed and manufactured the wheel using materials it created. The Venturi wheel is a world first.

A turning point in the history of the space industry, Venturi has reinvented the wheel. Engineers, chemists and physicists at Venturi Lab in Fribourg, Switzerland have created a unique hyper-deformable lunar wheel.

The wheel will be used on Venturi Astrolab’s FLEX rover, a vehicle that will be deposited on the Moon in 2026 by Space X’s Starship rocket and initially used to transport and deploy payloads.

In the past, with the exception of the Apollo missions, space exploration vehicles have always been equipped with rigid wheels. The Venturi wheel, however, is highly deformable while remaining long-lasting and robust.

From 2026, when the FLEX rover is put into service at the lunar south pole, where extreme temperatures (-90 to -230°C) prevail, the four wheels supporting the two-tonne vehicle (payload included) will warp in order to absorb ground irregularities as the FLEX travels at 20km/h. The wheels will need to perform over at least 1,000 kilometres and resist strong radiation from the south pole.

Features of the Venturi wheel include:

-          A diameter of 930mm

-          a complex system of 192 cables that act as spokes

-          a tread made flexible by a newly invented material

-          an outer rim equipped with springs

This technology, based on unique materials, is equal in importance to the arrival of the rubber, and later pneumatic rimmed tyre in the 19th century.

NASA has selected Venturi Astrolab to test and analyse the Venturi wheel at the NASA Glenn Research Centre in Cleveland and the NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston.