No, this isn’t a concept design for a Space: 1999 reboot but rather an illustration of the new moon rover in development by Toyota and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Toyota has just signed a three year agreement with JAXA and created a Lunar Exploration Mobility Works department that they will staff up with 30 people in the next few months. Unlike NASA’s 1970s Apollo moon buggies, this vehicle will be pressurized so astronauts won’t need to wear oxygen-supplying spacesuits when tooling around the lunar surface. It’ll be powered by “fuel cell electric vehicle technologies.” From Space.com:
If all goes according to plan, Toyota and JAXA will build a full-scale prototype in the 2022 time frame, design the flight model and build and test an engineering model about two years later, and build and test the flight model around 2027.
Launch would follow in 2029.
“The rover will be used for missions to explore the moon’s polar regions, with the aim both of investigating the possibility of using the moon’s resources ― such as frozen water ― and of acquiring technologies that enable exploration of the surfaces of massive heavenly bodies,” Toyota representatives wrote in the statement.