Goodyear prepares for trailblazing trek with 2028 return to the moon – Akron Beacon Journal

Goodyear has developed and tested tires for a number of uses and environments. But soon, its tires will carry humans to a place they’ve never been before.
The Akron-based company plans to have its tires on the moon in 2028 – which would be a first since the Apollo missions in the 1970s. What’s brand new, though, is that the tires will carry humans on a rover traversing the moon’s south pole, said John Kantura, program manager on Goodyear’s Advanced Architectures team.
In partnership with NASA, Lunar Outpost, General Motors and Leidos, four of Goodyear’s specially made lunar tires will roll along Lunar Outpost’s lunar terrain vehicle called Pegasus. It’s all part of NASA’s ongoing Artemis program that includes plans for a moon base, Kantura said.
“There will be continued technology development, applications, as we put our collective minds together,” he said.
Kantura said a display of a metal tire at Goodyear headquarters is a prototype.
“But it’s been tested a lot,” he said.
In an email, Lunar Outpost Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer AJ Gemer called the Artemis program and plan for a moon base “our generation’s Apollo.”
“What’s important is that Artemis is shifting from one-off missions to permanent lunar operations,” Gemer said. “That’s exactly what we’ve been building toward – it’s right in our name! Lunar Outpost’s role is to provide the mobility, robotics, and infrastructure needed to accelerate that shift.”
Kantura said experts at Goodyear who have directly touched the Artemis project run the gamut from mechanical engineers like him to others specializing in materials, simulations and quality and standards.
He said the work also involves “our studio folks” who are providing “aesthetic perspectives.”
“The whole company is excited, too,” said Kelly McGlumphy, director of global external communications.
Within the company, Kantura said work on the project is being performed in Akron and “across our Goodyear footprint.”
McGlumphy declined to share the planned production location for the tires that will trek the moon, citing company policy.
Addressing work with NASA, Kantura said he’s talked with agency representatives from Houston and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California.
“It’s been multiple sessions at NASA Glenn, which has been fantastic – obviously in our backyards – as we work together, which is great,” he said.
Lunar Outpost first partnered with Goodyear back in 2023, Gemer said, “to develop the safest, most reliable, and most capable LTV (lunar terrain vehicle) solution for NASA, the solution NASA has now chosen” to drive Artemis astronauts on the moon in 2028.
He said working with Goodyear “has been a highly collaborative, engineering-driven partnership focused on solving a very specific and very difficult problem: mobility in one of the most challenging environments in the solar system.”
Kantura said that while the current iteration of Goodyear’s lunar tire has a metallic foundation, it “still maintains other key aspects for mobility” and is “still flexible.”
There are several reasons why Goodyear is developing the tires the way it is, he said.
“Goodyear has had a rubber tire on the moon before already,” he said, adding that the mission was near the moon’s equator.
“But as far as the more extreme temperature swings on the south pole, think on the order of magnitude of 200 degrees Fahrenheit, high, and a low of minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit,” Kantura said.
The company is designing the tire to navigate the moon’s difficult terrain, which includes sand-like material, rocks and craters, Kantura said.
Addressing the tires’ load-carrying capacity, Kantura said, “… gravity is one-sixth on the moon, so you have the advantage of, what is 600 pounds here is 100 pounds there.”
Gemer highlighted how Goodyear brought “more than a century of tire innovation and deep expertise in extreme-performance materials” to this project.
“What’s been interesting is how much of Goodyear’s long history in extreme environments is being applied to this new frontier” at the south pole of the moon, he said. “They’re adapting decades of tire innovation, including concepts that trace back to Apollo-era thinking” for the south pole lunar terrain, dust and temperature extremes.
Kantura said he’s been a “car enthusiast” and “gearhead” since an early age, but also has been curious about the complexities of space exploration for much of his life. He said his appreciation for the latter subject deepened once he began working with numerous experts at Goodyear, NASA, Lunar Outpost, General Motors and Leidos.
“Apollo was a huge challenge. But the south pole? A whole other level,” he said. “So, all those technologies have to be developed, matured, validated, and Artemis – all the different components – build that work to the moon base.”
Patrick Williams covers growth and development for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at pwilliams@usatodayco.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @pwilliamsOH. Sign up for the Beacon Journal’s business and consumer newsletter, “What’s The Deal?“

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