Winter 2021 Newsletter

A note from John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic:

2021 was a tremendous year for mission progress at Astrobotic, and 2022 promises to be even bigger.

Throughout November and December, payloads for Peregrine Mission One have been arriving at our headquarters in Pittsburgh, where our team has been carefully securing each item to Peregrine’s flight decks. It’s incredibly exciting to see these instruments, technology demonstrators, time capsules, art pieces, and other payload items being prepared for launch. Aspirations, visions, and extraordinary technologies have made Peregrine’s flight to the Moon possible.

With these integrations in place, we’ll begin mounting the flight decks onto Peregrine in January - meaning, the Peregrine spacecraft is on schedule to depart Astrobotic, begin testing, and then launch into space aboard ULA’s Vulcan Centaur Rocket thereafter.

On Griffin Mission One, our team is on track to finish the assembly of the Griffin Structural Test Model (STM) by the end of the month. This one-to-one model of the Griffin lunar lander flight structure will undergo a rigorous testing campaign before we begin the spacecraft’s final build next year. In fact, we’ve already received several pieces for the STM, including the main flight deck. The enormity of these parts has been an exciting reminder that Griffin will be the largest lander since the Apollo Lunar Module to touch down on the Moon.

The Griffin program also got word this month that NASA selected our LiDAR-based Hazard Detection sensor for a suborbital flight test in the Flight Opportunities program. The sensor will help guide Griffin (and NASA’s water-seeking Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER) to a safe landing on the Moon, and this test campaign from Flight Opportunities will provide our safe-landing sensor with more terrestrial testing.

In addition to progress on the Peregrine and Griffin programs, our team has also been advancing new lunar surface power initiatives. This year we won a “Watts on the Moon” challenge from STMD demonstrating a strategy for power delivery in permanently shadowed regions of the Moon, and we also began executing on NASA’s Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT) program. Programs like these are just the beginning, as we pioneer new ways to enable permanent and operations on the surface for our customers.

As we look ahead to 2022, stay tuned as we launch Peregrine to the Moon and begin building Griffin for its flight in 2023!

Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season,
John

Pictured: John Thornton, Astrobotic CEO

PEREGRINE MISSION ONE

Peregrine Lunar Lander on Track
The Peregrine lunar lander is on track to be delivered for launch in 2022! Vehicle assembly is well underway, with major vehicle milestones set for January. Peregrine’s solar panels have arrived at Astrobotic, payload integrations to the deck are nearly complete, and initial transponder testing with a ground station analog was also successful, proving critical telemetry and ranging compatibility. The team has also completed several end-to-end mission simulations in mission control. Stay tuned as we close out the vehicle for flight!

Pictured: NASA’s Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) integrating with Peregrine flight decks. Astrobotic employees pictured far right: Adam Pontoni and Zach Skank.

Picture Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University: Developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, the IRIS rover’s mission is to collect scientific images and ranging data.

GRIFFIN MISSION ONE

Pictured: Keith Gildea, mechanical engineer at Astrobotic, assembles the Griffin STM structure.

Griffin Structural Test Model (STM) Underway
Aside from the Apollo’s Lunar Module, our Griffin lander is the largest lunar lander ever built. To test its structural readiness for flight, Astrobotic is building out a full one-to-one scale structural test model of Griffin that will undergo acoustic, static, and vibration testing. Keep an eye out for more photos as the structure comes together this month!

Pictured: The Griffin STM base plate arrives at Astrobotic’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

PLANETARY MOBILITY

CubeRover Testing Successful
The Planetary Mobility team completed its first round of environmental tests on the CubeRover engineering unit. The rover was subjected to random and sinusoidal vibration, thermal vacuum cycling, thermal vacuum balance, and electromagnetic interference tests to ensure it will survive during launch, transit, and operations on the Moon. The results from this first environmental test campaign are very promising and will be performed again on the CubeRover flight unit in Q2 2022.

The team also made fantastic progress on its wireless charging system design, coming off the heels of a successful System Requirements Review late last quarter. The early successes of this product line have captured interest from several organizations, one of which will be the first customer to fly this unit to the Moon for a near term mission.

SPACE TECH

New Tools for Space Domain Awareness
Astrobotic was recently selected under the NASA Flight Opportunities program for a new testing campaign for the company's Hazard Detection (HD) LiDAR system. This advanced sensor system incorporates a space-grade LiDAR unit, powerful space computing, and proven algorithms to enable safe and precise lunar landing. The testing will provide valuable information for Astrobotic's Griffin mission to the South Pole of the Moon in 2023.

In July 2021, an Astrobotic-led team including ASU, the University of Pittsburgh, and other industry partners was selected for a $1.7M Space Force Pitch Day award to further develop event-based and neuromorphic processing methods for space robotics and sensing applications. This effort will build on previous work for robust, low power perception developed by Astrobotic for NASA and civil space interests. Interested in learning more about RetiNav? Contact us!