Voyager's Griffin-1 Lander Passes JPL Environmental Gauntlet

Voyager Technologies confirmed that its Griffin Mission One lander has completed a rigorous series of environmental tests at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The spacecraft, located in Southern California, survived the trials designed to mimic the physical stresses of a lunar journey.

Engineers subjected the Griffin-1 vehicle to extreme temperature fluctuations and intense vibration. The tests also included acoustic exposure meant to replicate the noise levels present between launch and landing. An image captured on Aug. 31 shows the lander inside JPL's 25-foot-wide space simulator.

Charles Whetsel, manager of the Exploration Systems Development Office at JPL, stated that the laboratory's Environmental Test Laboratory has tested robotic explorers since the Ranger program. That effort provided NASA with its first close-up views of the moon in the mid-1960s. "We're proud to provide our expertise and facilities to support this new phase of commercial lunar exploration," Whetsel said.

The Griffin-1 mission is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. The lander will transport more than 1,100 pounds of cargo to a site near the lunar south pole. This payload consists of science experiments and new technologies intended for surface testing.

The cargo includes Astrolab's FLIP rover, which will explore the terrain while carrying a supercomputer. The mission is scheduled to launch later this year. The work performed by Griffin-1 is designed to support the development of a future crewed moon base, a project NASA aims to execute over the next five years.