Pittsburgh's moon company is bound for a stop in the California desert as part of a new research and development effort before it embarks on its first lunar journey later this year.
Astrobotic Technology Inc., based in the North Side, announced that it will build a high-fidelity 3D testing field that will span 100 meters by 100 meters — roughly the equivalent of two football fields side by side — in the Mojave Desert to mimic the type of topography and optical properties found on the moon's surface.
The company, whose Peregrine lunar lander is destined for its maiden voyage to the lunar surface sometime in Q4 of 2023, is calling this new testing site the Lunar Surface Proving Ground (LSPG). Astrobotic hopes to demonstrate the use of LiDAR scanners and navigation algorithms for lunar landing purposes as well as showcase if rovers and other robotic systems can perform in the extreme lighting conditions that can be encountered at the moon's poles, which the desert environment can also replicate.
But LSPG's first task will be to enhance Astrobotic's entry, descent and landing technologies aboard its suborbital rocket lander called Xodiac, a product that could someday support governmental and commercial lunar landings.
"The accuracy of the LSPG’s terrain will allow our customers to test their technologies using the closest physical copy of lunar terrain available on Earth," Jenna Edwards, director of propulsion & test at Astrobotic, said in a prepared statement. "We already have four Xodiac campaigns booked to fly their payloads over the test field, and we’re excited to see how else we can leverage the LSPG to advance the readiness of other critical technologies."
Astrobotic said it expects to complete the build-out of the LSPG by the end of the year and it will be unveiled as part of Astrobotic's Propulsion & Test facility. It'll later serve as the test site for NASA's Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge where three winning teams will fly sensing-detecting payloads aboard Xodiac to demonstrate the possibility of landing on the moon during the lunar night.
