"Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) today announced that it has started building an initial development model of a lunar exploration mobility rover in tandem with aerospace partners," the company said on the website.
According to the statement, the rover will be specifically designed to explore the surface of the Moon, "equipped with various advanced technologies with the goal to deliver a universally applicable mobility platform to handle a variety of payloads." It features "solar charging, autonomous driving, thermal management and radiation shielding" and can carry up to 70 kilograms worth of equipment.
The company is expecting that the rover's prototype will be finished in the second half of 2024, and the rover will be ready for launch in 2027.
Hyundai Motor said it signed a joint multilateral research agreement with six South Korean research institutes in the aerospace sector, namely Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, and Korea Automotive Technology Institute, "to run and support a consultative body to develop a mobility solution for lunar surface exploration."