It's called the Roo-ver - an Australian-designed and built lunar rover that is projected to make history when it takes a one-way trip to Earth's celestial satellite with NASA in 2030.
For Keegan Buzza from the Australian Space Agency, the $42 million program is a massive investment in current as well as future capabilities.
"We're expecting to see the global space economy triple over the next decade, so this is a really important economic proposition for Australia," he told reporters at QUT's lunar test facility in inner Brisbane.
Behind him, the 20kg rover slowly trekked across a lunar-like environment with a sandy texture approximating the moon's soil, known as regolith.
Understanding regolith, Mr Buzza said, would be key to humans establishing a sustainable presence on the moon's surface.
He said information beamed back to Earth would help humans unlock secrets of how to cope with drought and ensure food security on a drier and warmer planet.
"By understanding the surface of the moon better, what makes it up, we're effectively understanding what Earth was like billions of years ago," he said.
"By doing that, we start to develop climate models in a more detailed way, and we can bring that knowledge back in a way that helps us to address a lot of the environmental models here on Earth."
But the Roo-ver is never coming back.
It's been designed to operate for exactly one lunar day - approximately two earthly weeks - with the sun powering its operation as it collects data to transmit back home.
The Roo-ver - which will weigh just 3kg on the moon - has to withstand the harshest of conditions.
Lunar temperatures can range from 250C below zero to 150C above.
Once the sun goes down, its mission is complete.
But it's literally a moonshot, and technical director Katie Doyle said the stakes were high.
"We can't just go up there and save the rover," she said.
"It needs to be able to operate first time, every time."
Other environmental challenges include dense, sticky moon dust and maintaining traction on the surface in about one-sixth that of Earth's gravitational field.
"We need to make sure it doesn't just sit and spin its wheels and do 'doughies'," Ms Doyle said.
Mr Buzza said NASA had reached out to the Australian Space Agency for the country's ability to operate in harsh environments, from mining sites in the outback to Antarctica research stations.
He said research to attempt to grow plants on the moon was under way, as well as technology to analyse minerals on the surface.
"You can then apply that back on Earth," he said.
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