Astrobotic announced that their CubeRover-1 lunar rover completed its acceptance test campaign and has been deemed ready for flight to the lunar south pole aboard Astrobotic’s upcoming Griffin Mission One (Griffin-1).
The test campaign put the company’s shoebox-sized CubeRover through its paces, passing a battery of industry-standard tests, including thermal-vacuum (TVAC) testing to prove the rover can survive as well as operate in space and on the lunar surface. CubeRover-1 also passed Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)/Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) testing, which ensures the rover is compatible with its electromagnetic environment, the launch vehicle, and the Griffin lander.
“We saw an opportunity to manifest the first CubeRover on Griffin-1 and accelerated our schedule by 18 months. We took elements of the CubeRover-1 mission from TRL 0 to TRL 6 in eight months, something you don’t hear of very often in the space industry,” said Andrea Davis, project manager and lead mechanical engineer for CubeRover-1 at Astrobotic. “The CubeRover-1 team has this relentless ability to drive through obstacles, both literally and figuratively, and I’m so lucky to work with a team that cares about this mission as much as I do.”
For this mission, CubeRover-1 will integrate with Mission Control’s Spacefarer software platform, culminating in a joint mission demonstration named BEACON (Benchmark for Engineering and Autonomous Capabilities in Operations and Navigation). During the BEACON mission, Mission Control’s Spacefarer platform will play a mission-critical role in enabling real-time commanding and monitoring of CubeRover-1. This demonstration is made possible in part through funding from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) under the Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP).
CubeRover-1 was also selected by NASA for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award for a commercial “mobility-as-a-service” demonstration on the Moon and to advance several critical technologies that will enable future CubeRovers to survive the harsh lunar night and communicate directly with lunar orbital assets. CubeRover will drive into the Griffin lander’s shadow to collect thermal data that will further the development of a compact radioisotope heater unit (RHU) for the CubeRover product line and perform the first-ever in-situ mobility tests to assess lunar surface trafficability for lightweight robotic systems. The rover will also use a software-defined radio (SDR) system to communicate with Griffin in a preliminary demonstration of long-range orbital communications.
“CubeRover-1’s development, test campaign, and upcoming lunar mission is a culmination of 16 years of development and 37 rover technology contracts totaling over $20+ million,” said Davis, “We’re excited to continue this momentum forward to the payload integration activities planned in the coming months with both our Griffin-1 team and our partners at Mission Control Space Services.”
With the test campaign complete, CubeRover-1 will next be integrated with Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander to support Griffin-1’s launch window, which is slated for late 2025.
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