Lander Loaded With 455 Kilograms Survives NASA Simulated Space Tests

Voyager Technologies' Griffin-1 lander can carry 455 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of cargo, and it just survived the shaking and heat meant to mimic the trip there. The spacecraft finished environmental trials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, with JPL announcing recently that the full test series was passed.

Engineers ran the lander through extreme temperatures, heavy vibration and the loud acoustics of launch and landing. An Aug. 31 image shows Griffin-1 inside JPL's 25-foot-wide space simulator. JPL's Environmental Test Laboratory has handled this kind of work since the Ranger program of the mid-1960s, which returned NASA's first close-up views of the moon. "We're proud to provide our expertise and facilities to support this new phase of commercial lunar exploration," said Charles Whetsel, who manages the Exploration Systems Development Office at JPL.

Griffin-1 flies under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Its manifest covers science experiments and new hardware, including Astrolab's FLIP rover, which is designed to move across the surface while carrying a supercomputer. Launch is planned for later this year.

NASA aims to build a crewed base near the lunar south pole over roughly the next five years. The work Griffin-1 carries there is intended to feed into that effort.