Simulating Lunar Conditions for Autonomous Power and Thermal Management in the Endurance Rover

The proposed Endurance lunar rover mission introduces autonomous, long-duration exploration in the challenging operating environment of the lunar South Pole–Aitken Basin. This paper adds autonomous power and thermal management to the existing autonomy capabilities on the Endurance project. This upgrade represents a step-change that enables the rover to reason about its onboard resources for the first time. The proposed testing architecture supports meaningful Earth-based field testing by coupling real hardware with simulation-in- the-loop models that capture extreme lunar thermal conditions and mission-relevant power behavior. This setup allows Endurance’s autonomy software to run closed-loop using native signals where possible, while substituting simulated lunar counterparts to expose behaviors that cannot be tested otherwise. Through extensive physical and simulated testing, covering more than 4 km of continuous driving, we show that the system can manage its internal state and resources autonomously under lunar-representative conditions, validating system-level autonomy performance. Finally, we provide a matrix of testing configurations that span different simulation fidelities and hardware integrations to support ongoing mission development.