To kick off Outback To Orbit, we meet a couple of people working to take Australia to the Moon. They’re coming up with brand-new, cutting-edge designs for autonomous rovers - and one of those designs will be chosen to make history later this decade in our nation’s first lunar mission.

As part of NASA's Artemis program, the rover mission will support an attempt to collect lunar soil (known as regolith) and extract oxygen from it. This process will be crucial in establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon, which is a key goal of the Artemis program. Developing such an advanced rover will also help us do more with autonomous and remote-controlled machines back here on Earth.

Our featured guests for this episode are Ben Sorensen (ELO2) and Dr Sarah Cannard (AROSE).