After launching a lunar orbiter later this year, scientists will begin the process of choosing among several competing rover designs for exploring the Moon's geology and terrain, and now the first of these candidates has been unveiled for public consumption.
Nomad, a robotic rover built by the Carnegie-Mellon Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, spent 45 days in the Atacama in 1997, in order to evaluate its ability to negotiate the kinds of rocky terrain found on the moon and Mars.