PITTSBURGH — Astrobotic showed off the lunar lander it plans to launch later this year that will be the vanguard of NASA’s new lunar base ambitions.
At a June 15 event at its headquarters, the company revealed its Griffin-1 lander. The company is completing final work on the lander before shipping it to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California for environmental tests in the next few weeks.
After those tests are complete, Griffin will return to Astrobotic for final integration work before shipping to Florida for launch preparations. The lander is projected to launch in the fourth quarter of this year on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Griffin will deliver 10 payloads from six nations to the moon, led by the FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform (FLIP) robotic rover from Astrolab. The 500-kilogram rover will be the heaviest commercial payload landed on the moon to date.
“This is the first infrastructure-class lander going to the surface of the moon,” said John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, at a press conference, citing its ability in the future to deliver power systems and other equipment. “This lander will be part of the cornerstone of building up the moon base.”
