Raphael Thys
Canoo will transport Artemis II astronauts from the crew quarters to the launchpad and look cool doing it.
We've been wondering about the future of EV startup Canoo for a while now, which is kind of a bummer because the brand's ideas about modularity and design are super cool. We've loved its various concepts over the years, but a production model that people can get their hands on always seems just out of reach.
Fast-forward to Wednesday, and the company has announced a partnership with NASA, wherein it will provide the crew transport vehicles for the upcoming Artemis missions that will bring humans back to the moon.
Now, despite the somewhat generic designation of "Crew Transport Vehicles," the NASA CTVs have a very specific mission transporting not only a crew of fully space-suited astronauts, but all their gear and support personnel to the launchpad. If you've seen the Canoo concepts, they're basically big boxes on wheels, making the Canoo perfect for this task.
Canoo has undergone many significant changes recently, including the decision to move the company's headquarters from Torrance, California, to Bentonville, Arkansas (also home of Walmart), with a production facility in Pryor, Oklahoma. Whether these will prove enough to get Canoo fully off the ground remains to be seen, but we'll keep some fingers crossed.
The Canoo CTVs are set for delivery in 2023 ahead of the first crewed Artemis mission, which is planned for May of 2024.
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