NASA vans will be completely electric in an effort to bet on sustainability as much as possible.
Just three months ago, the company Canoo announced that it had won a contract to develop the vehicles with which NASA will transport its astronauts to the launch bases for the Artemis mission.
It is a completely electric van, capable of traveling 80 kilometers from the operational bases to the rockets in which the astronauts will finally travel to space.
NASA detailed all the characteristics to the possible candidates and after analyzing the options they chose Canoo. The company, which according to Gizmodo is not going through its best economic moment, celebrated with this Instagram post that shows the vans through renders.
This was on April 13. Almost three months passed and the company already showed the first vans testing thir performance at the Kennedy Space Center itself, in the United States.
The images that the company publishes on its Instagram account now have three real vans in which some astronauts and NASA representatives climbed to cover the route to the exact launch area.
NASA’s new vans
According to social media posts, Canoo took three vans to the NASA facility. Two have common colors like regular vehicles and one, painted white, has NASA markings.
The first two described have windows on their sides and in the back. While the one with the distinctions of the space agency does not. We assume that this would be to transfer cargo and stayed at the same NASA headquarters.
The same space agency determined the simple specifications that each one must have. Four astronauts, three crew members and the driver should enter without problems. The width of the entrance and exit door is necessary, since the travelers to the space are going to pass with their suits on.
In addition, according to a gizmodo review , NASA specified the following details:
- 4 gear bags (helmets, etc.), each approximately 50 x 50 x 50 centimeters, totaling 0.13 cubic meters.
- 4 ice-based refrigeration units (CU) approximately 71 x 41 x 56 centimeters.
- 1 equipment bag (79 x 30 x 41 centimeters) for the suit technician.
- 1 platform transfer bag: 1 large travel bag approximately 79 x 30 x 41 centimeters.
- 2 cubic feet per passenger for assorted storage.
