Astrolab

NASA has awarded Astrolab and its partners a contract worth up to $1.9 billion to advance the development of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle, which will help Artemis astronauts explore more of the Moon’s surface. Astrolab is one of three teams to win contract awards. We are excited that NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration intends to use Astrolab’s Flexible Logistics & Exploration (FLEX) rover for crewed operations beginning with Artemis V in 2029, and will use the rover on prior uncrewed missions, operating FLEX remotely from Earth. Read the full announcement: https://lnkd.in/gmh9bGcN

Back in September, Astrolab and Axiom Space worked together on final adjustments to pack up our FLEX rover mockup for delivery to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Axiom Space and Astrolab engineers are working to ensure the integration of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) with the FLEX rover mockup, in support of Artemis’ unprecedented scientific experimentation and discovery on the lunar surface. The mockup came together through months of work at Astrolab’s office in Hawthorne, California and Axiom’s office in Houston, Texas, in close coordination with NASA and the team at JSC.

2024 has been a big year for Astrolab with some incredible milestones. Just to name a few: 🌕NASA awarded Astrolab and our teammates, Axiom Space and Odyssey Space Research, a contract worth up to $1.9 billion to advance the development of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle 🌖FLEX went on a road trip around the country, visiting everywhere from Washington DC to Space Symposium We conducted testing with astronauts Kate Rubins and Kayla Barron using our SN1 FLEX mockup 🌗We constructed and tested a new mockup of our FLEX rover to Johnson Space Center for Human in the Loop Testing 🌘Our teams assembled and tested a Humvee rig designed for putting our lunar rover's sensor suite to the test 🌑We announced our collaboration with Venturi Space to produce a lunar rover designed to respond to the growing need for smaller payloads by organizations seeking access to the Moon We're very proud of what our team has accomplished this year, and look forward to what 2025 has in store!

We're kicking off 2025 in Denver and in greater Los Angles Astrolab. Followed, up the following week in the Bay Area and the next in Washington D.C.! We look forward to seeing you there. ⛰️ Denver - Weds Jan 08 ⛰️ at Cerebral Brewing 👨🚀 Los Angeles - Thurs Jan 09 👨🚀 at Astrolab w/ ArgoSpace 🛰️ San Francisco Bay Area - Weds Jan 15 🛰️ at The Sports Page 📡 Washington D.C. - Weds Jan 22 at Highline RxR Use the URL below for registration: #space #spaceindustry #spacetechnology Sarah Freeman, Ubaldo Ciminieri (he/him/his), Eileen Duong, Brianna Clark, Andrew VanCamp, Craig Pritsky, MGM, Venkat Daita, Rashid Neighbors

2024 in Review | As we come to the end of a landmark year for Astrolab, we're looking back on our numerous 2024 milestones!

Who can resist a good pose for the camera when you are in a space suit? Pictures taken of NASA Astronaut Randy Bresnik during testing of our lunar rover mockup at Johnson Space Center.

Our Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) rover mockup currently resides at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, but it started out being built at our headquarters in Hawthorne, CA! It then journeyed to our teammate Axiom Space in Houston, Texas for final integration and testing before heading to NASA. Astrolab is one of three companies selected by NASA to develop a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) which will help Artemis astronauts explore more of the Moon’s surface on future missions.

Shoutout to our Astrolab team and all of our hardworking teammates who designed, developed, tested and delivered our mockup of FLEX to NASA’s Johnson Space Center earlier this year. We are proud to be working with NASA to test out the mockup, and look forward to working more on our Lunar Terrain Vehicle in 2025.

A huge thank you to all of the NASA astronauts who participated in the Human-in-the-Loop testing of our FLEX rover mockup in Johnson Space Center’s Building 9, including Jessica Watkins, Frank Rubio and Randy Bresnik.

Over the past few months astronauts have tested out our FLEX mockup in NASA’s Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS). ARGOS is able to help simulate the use of FLEX while in lunar gravity, giving our design teams invaluable feedback on opportunities to optimize the rover for crew use.