By Andy Tomaswick
April 3, 2025
Sometimes, a brief update is all that is needed to keep the public interested in major projects. That’s precisely what John Baker and James Keane of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory provided to the 56th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in Texas last month. Their brief paper showcased the ongoing development of the Endurance autonomous rover, which was more thoroughly fleshed out in a massive 296-page mission concept study back in 2023. But what has the team been up to since then?
Before getting to the details of current work, it’s best to understand the original purpose of the mission. Endurance is a response to the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, which listed developing an autonomous rover to explore the area around the lunar south pole as the highest priority for NASA’s Lunar Exploration and Discovery Program. In its current iteration, Endurance will traverse over 2,000 km of the South Pole-Aitken basin, one of the most scientifically interesting parts of the Moon.
It’s also the part most likely to attract human visitors as part of NASA’s plan to return to the Moon. Endurance will be ready, having collected up to 100 kg of samples along the way for hand-off to the humans who will be joining it. AI will also play a central role in the rover, helping it navigate and even helping to decide what rocks to sample.
Fraser discusses why the lunar south pole – the target of Endurance – is so important.
So, what has the development team, led by Dr. Keane and Mr. Baker, been up to since the original project announcement? Quite a lot, apparently. One of the major milestones was developing a basic system design and then having an artist render what it would look like operating with an astronaut. While looks are nice, it’s the underlying engineering that will really enable Endurance.
There were three major steps in those directions. First, the team has been working to utilize different data sources about the Moon to map out a planned path for the rover. 2,000 km is quite the distance, and the lunar south pole isn’t particularly hospitable. Navigating around boulders and crevasses is the standard operating procedure for any planetary exploration rover, but Endurance will have to do it 10 times faster than any of its predecessors to complete its mission.
To do so, AI will be needed. Perseverance, the most capable rover launched to date, used a relatively limited AI platform to navigate around Jezero Crater on Mars. However, advances in the field have skyrocketed the technology’s capabilities since then, and JPL scientists have taken advantage of it. They implemented a code update to a test rover called Athena that would allow it to navigate semi-autonomously at the speed required by Endurance. It even did so at night, which is particularly important on the Moon.
Water is one thing that is expected to be found at the pole – as Fraser explains.
Athena itself wasn’t the only demonstration platform for the technology, though—the researchers also built the Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme and Sloped Terrains, or ERNEST, rover test bed, which looks much more similar to the system design of Endurance. It’s about half the size of the full rover but will enable testing of the various subsystems of its larger-scale successor.
Even with all the technical advances, there is still some basic science to get right. The next major step for Endurance is implementing a Science Definition Team for the project. This team will fully define the science objectives of the mission, allowing the team to fully scope out the engineering challenges for the rover’s further development.
Given budget cuts across the US federal government, the Artemis program’s future is still uncertain. However, as long as there are still people employed at JPL, scientists and engineers will still be hoping to create Endurance or something like it. With luck and continued funding, one day, it will roam the surface of our nearest neighbor and travel where no rover has gone before.
Learn more:
J Baker & JT Keane – STATUS UPDATE ON ENDURANCE: A LUNAR SOUTH POLE–AITKEN BASIN SAMPLE RETURN AND EXPLORATION ROVER
JT Keane et al – Endurance Concept Study Report
UT – A Rover Could Weave its Way Between Patches of Sunlight on the Lunar South Pole
UT – NASA Stops Work on VIPER Moon Rover, Citing Cost and Schedule Issues