NASA and Nissan have just announced a five-year partnership to develop a self-driving car that will be able to navigate in cities and in space as well. The development will take place in Silicon Valley, where both NASA and Nissan have R&D facilities.
Nissan will help NASA in the autonomous driving part of the project.
We have a rover on Mars. It is not very autonomous,” Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, told Wired. As we go deeper into space, into more and more dangerous locations, we need to add that autonomy.
Nissan is already working on self-driving cars, with an aim to introduce autonomous driving technology to the public between 2016 and 2020.
The partnership brings together the best and brightest of NASA and Nissan and validates our investments in Silicon Valley, said Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn.
Besides Nissan, other companies are working on the same technology as well, including rival Toyota ,General Motors, Ford and of course Google Inc.
