posted 02-06-2011 11:27 AM               

Astrobotic Technology Announces Lunar Mission on SpaceX Falcon 9

Astrobotic Technology Inc. today announced it has signed a contract with SpaceX to launch Astrobotic's robotic payload to the Moon on a Falcon 9. The expedition will search for water and deliver payloads, with the robot narrating its adventure while sending 3D video. The mission could launch as soon as December 2013.

The Falcon 9 upper stage will sling Astrobotic on a four-day cruise to the Moon. Astrobotic will then orbit the moon to align for landing. The spacecraft will land softly, precisely and safely using technologies pioneered by Carnegie Mellon University for guiding autonomous cars. The rover will explore for three months, operate continuously during the lunar days, and hibernate through the lunar nights. The lander will sustain payload operations with generous power and communications.

"The mission is the first of a serial campaign," said Dr. William "Red" Whittaker, chairman of Astrobotic Technology and founder of the university's Field Robotics Center. "Astrobotic's missions will pursue new resources, deliver rich experiences, serve new customers and open new markets. Spurred further by incentives, contracts, and the Google Lunar X-Prize, this is a perfect storm for new exploration."

"The moon has economic and scientific treasures that went undiscovered during the Apollo era, and our robot explorers will spearhead this new lunar frontier," said David Gump, president of Astrobotic Technology. "The initial mission will bank up to $24 million in Google's Lunar X-Prize, Florida's $2 million launch bonus, and NASA's $10 million landing contract while delivering 240 pounds of payload for space agencies and corporate marketers."

In addition to Carnegie Mellon, where several prototypes have been built and tested, the mission is supported by industrial partners such as International Rectifier Corporation and corporate sponsors such as Caterpillar Inc. and ANSYS Inc.

About Astrobotic Technology

Astrobotic™ expeditions deliver payloads, scientific instruments and engineering experiments to the moon for space agencies, academic researchers and the media/marketing industries. NASA awarded the company a $10 million contract in 2010 for access to the expedition's engineering data on lunar landing technologies. The company also has a NASA assignment to design a lunar mining robot to recover the frozen volatiles at the poles, which can be transformed into propellant to refuel spacecraft for their return to Earth. Other expeditions will explore "skylight" holes and lunar caves as havens from temperature extremes, radiation exposure and micrometeorite bombardment. Astrobotic also plans a robot to circle the moon, outrunning lunar sundown and avoiding the immobilizing cold of the two-week night.

posted 08-08-2011 12:00 PM               

NASA picks Astrobotic Technology to create innovations in exploring volcanic caves on the moon and Mars

NASA today (Aug. 8) selected Astrobotic Technology Inc. to research breakthroughs in methods to explore lava tubes, caves and recently discovered "skylights" leading down into these features on the Moon and Mars.

Lava tubes and other types of caves can shelter astronauts and robots from harsh off-world environments, which on the moon means micrometeorite bombardment, intense radiation and temperature swings of 500 degrees from day to night. Cave-dwelling will be less expensive than bringing shelter materials all the way from Earth.

Astrobotic, in cooperation with Carnegie Mellon, is preparing a robotic expedition to the moon to be launched in the December 2013 to July 2014 time frame.

Astrobotic Technology was one of 30 companies, universities and NASA organizations that were selected for negotiation today by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program in the Office of Chief Technologist. The approximately $100,000 award is to cover a year-long study starting next month.

Astrobotic will be eligible for a $500,000 Phase 2 award next year to continue the work.

posted 11-29-2011 12:00 PM               

Astrobotic Wins NASA Contract for Robot Teams to Explore Martian and Lunar Caves

NASA today (Nov. 29) selected Astrobotic Technology Inc. for a contract to develop robotic teams to explore extensive caves on Mars, the Moon, and other planetary destinations. Astrobotic will develop robots that cooperate to overcome the challenges of underground planetary missions: no light for solar power, radio communications blocked by rock, and mobility challenged by rough terrain.

Through a subcontract to Carnegie Mellon University, the research will build on multi-robot and subterranean robot research pioneered at CMU to improve capabilities and reduce risk of failure relative to single-robot missions.

Recent interest in exploration of planetary caves was prompted by the discovery of skylights on the Moon and on Mars through satellite imagery. The presence of these skylights, believed to be entrances to lava tubes, on two distinct planetary bodies suggests that these features can be found on other planets. It is unknown whether these systems are present as intricate 'plumbing' networks extending for hundreds of miles, or occur as isolated caverns of limited extent. Planetary caves could be ideal early shelters for robots and crews against the radiation, micrometeorites and extremely high and low temperatures of the lunar surface.

"Team exploration with robots is similar to a football team," said Steve Huber, Astrobotic's principal investigator for the contract. "One may call the plays, some do the heavy work, and others are sufficiently nimble to reach the farthest pockets of the cave."

Selection by NASA will be followed by a negotiation period before the $125,000 contract is formally awarded to the company.

"NASA officials see Astrobotic as a key option to get their payloads to the Moon at a cost the agency can afford in this tight budget environment," said Astrobotic President David Gump. "This is the eighth lunar contract we've won, and an indication of the interest NASA has in commercial approaches to lunar exploration."

posted 04-23-2012 12:00 PM               

NASA Contract to Astrobotic Technology Investigates Prospecting for Lunar Resources

Astrobotic Technology Inc. today (April 23) announced a NASA contract to determine whether its polar rover can deploy an ice-prospecting payload to the Moon. The ice could yield water, oxygen, methane and rocket propellant to dramatically reduce the cost of space exploration.

"Astrobotic seeks the immense resources available on the Moon to both accelerate space exploration and improve life on Earth," said David Gump, president. "The lunar path is near term. We intend a prospecting mission in 2015."

Astrobotic began development of its lunar excavation robot in 2009 under a series of NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts that now total $795,000. The new NASA SBIR Phase 3 follow-on contract is to consider robot refinements for carrying NASA-supplied instruments and a drill.

Recent lunar-orbiting satellites from several nations, and a NASA probe that impacted near the Moon's south pole, have sensed polar ice composed of water, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and other substances. These polar resources went undiscovered during the Apollo expeditions which landed near the equator. The next step is to drill and measure the polar ices directly to see if they are sufficiently concentrated to be useful.

Lunar propellant derived from the ice could fuel spacecraft for long voyages, Earth-return, or maneuvering satellites. Water and oxygen would be invaluable for life support. Other elements have immense value for energy, processes, fabrication and habitation.

When seeking resources from planetary destinations, the four-day travel time to reach the Moon enables early return on investment compared to more distant targets.

Astrobotic has reserved a Falcon 9 launch vehicle made by SpaceX to send its spacecraft and robot explorer on a trajectory toward the Moon. The Astrobotic spacecraft will deliver the prospector to the lunar surface with technology that autonomously avoids landing hazards such as large rocks and craters. The navigation system is derived from technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University under Dr. William "Red" Whittaker, Astrobotic's founder. Dr. Whittaker won the DARPA Urban Challenge with a driverless car able to autonomously navigate through city streets, avoiding other cars and obeying the California traffic code. The ability to detect hazards and automatically select alternative pathways is the core of Astrobotic's automatic lunar landing system.

Astrobotic has won $12 million in nine NASA lunar contracts, covering topics from simulating lunar gravity on Earth to discovering ways to robotically explore the Moon's volcanic caves. Lunar satellites recently spotted potential entrances to these caves, which can provide shelter to robot and human explorers from the radiation, micrometeorites and extreme temperature swings of the lunar surface.

Astrobotic's commercial expeditions carry payloads for space agencies and generate exclusive media content for television and Web portals. Corporate sponsors will give their customers direct access to the robot's frontier-building activities through competitions and custom internet feeds.

posted 02-19-2014 12:00 PM               

Astrobotic Technology advances to Google Lunar XPRIZE milestone prize accomplishment round

Astrobotic Technology announced today (Feb. 19) that it has advanced to the Accomplishment Round of the Milestone Prizes offered by the Google Lunar XPRIZE, qualifying the team to receive up to $1.75 million for reaching its objectives in three categories – Landing, Mobility, and Imaging.

In a major step toward one of those objectives, Astrobotic is testing its autonomous landing technology with a series of flights on a propulsive lander at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California this month. The flight campaign, which will test the guidance sensors for Astrobotic's lunar lander, is made possible by a NASA Flight Opportunities Program award.

Astrobotic is slated in October 2015 to launch a robotic lander and rover aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a mission to a lunar skylight, which is a pit that may lead to an underground cave formed by lava flow. Such caves could one day shelter human explorers.

The Google Lunar XPRIZE added the Milestone Prizes to recognize the technological achievements and associated financial hurdles faced by the teams as they prepare their lunar spacecraft for the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE. According to the official Google Lunar XPRIZE blog, "Two years ago, XPRIZE began a dialogue with teams to better understand the challenges that they were facing and to determine what steps we might take to better nurture and support this prize ecosystem. The Milestone Prizes resulted, as we needed to find a way to recognize and support the teams that were making substantial technical progress toward the requirements of the competition."

To qualify, each team submitted a set of technical documents detailing their mission concept and technical development progress, plus development plans for one or more subsystems. The data packages were evaluated by a panel of international judges from aerospace industry, research, and NASA to select the teams for the Accomplishment Round. The judging panel will monitor each team in the Accomplishment round until they achieve their objectives or the round ends on September 30, 2014. Each team that completes the objectives specified in their data package will claim the prize.

"Google Lunar XPRIZE has made a fantastic commitment to nurturing the teams that are steadily advancing toward mission readiness," said John Thornton, Astrobotic's CEO. "This was a smart way for the XPRIZE Foundation to help all of us seed a new industry."

Of the five teams selected for the Accomplishment Round, Astrobotic is one of just two that is eligible for cash award in all three categories. Astrobotic will receive $1 million, $500,000 and $250,000 for achieving objectives in the Landing, Mobility and Imaging categories, respectively. In the Landing category, Astrobotic will demonstrate that its vision-guided landing sensor package can identify terrain landmarks, detect surface hazards and perform other tasks necessary for a safe, precise landing on the Moon. In the Mobility category, Carnegie Mellon University will lead research on whether Astrobotic's rover can survive the vacuum and extreme cold of the Moon, as well as show that it can complete and document a 500-meter traverse. In the Imaging category, Astrobotic will demonstrate that it can capture the type and quality of video images specified for the Google Lunar XPRIZE.

Spun out of Carnegie Mellon in 2008, Astrobotic flies hardware systems into space for companies, governments, and universities. The company has 12 employees and is headquartered in Pittsburgh.

"Just as private industry is now routinely delivering cargo to the International Space Station, Astrobotic will affordably deliver cargo to the Moon. The Milestone Prizes accelerate that reality," said Dr. William "Red" Whittaker, Astrobotic's chairman and Chief Science Officer.

NASA recently announced the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative, which seeks to work with a commercial partner to develop robotic lunar lander capabilities for delivering small and medium class payloads to the lunar surface. To date, NASA has awarded a total of 14 contracts to Astrobotic. "We are grateful that both XPRIZE Foundation and NASA have stepped up their support for commerce and science on the Moon" said John Thornton, Astrobotic's CEO. "We believe that these are smart, high-leverage investments with impact far beyond their cost."

posted 03-31-2014 12:00 PM               

Astrobotic Technology announces successful landing system test

Astrobotic Technology announced today (March 31) that its autonomous landing technology, the Astrobotic Autolanding System (AAS), performed successfully throughout an open-loop flight campaign on the Masten Aerospace Xombie, a vertical-takeoff vertical-landing suborbital rocket. Testing was conducted at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, CA in February 2014. The test was made possible through funding by the NASA Flight Opportunities Program, which is managed by NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.

The AAS provides precise real-time location updates for spacecraft through visual navigation and automatically avoids hazards during landing on unknown terrain. The landing sensor uses two cameras, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and a scanning laser.

"The pair of cameras work together like human eyes to measure distance and track motion. The scanning laser gives precise distance measurements and enables us to pick out hazards as small as a curb. The AAS landing sensor combines these sensors with an IMU – the device that enables airplane autopilots to determine direction to the ground – to build its models," explained Kevin Peterson, Astrobotic’s Chief Technology Officer.

The test campaign validated performance of pose estimation and hazard detection in a flight-relevant environment (i.e., one that includes factors such as vibration, rotation rate, plume, etc.) Ground truth trajectory and hazard data confirmed the ability of the sensor to detect hazards as small as a soccer ball. The test also confirmed that the shape of the trajectory is flyable and supports hazard detection.

This flight campaign was a critical step in maturing the AAS technology. Prior to this test, the sensors and software were exercised on ground vehicles, ziplines, helicopters, and airplanes to validate visual navigation and hazard detection at a variety of altitudes and velocities. This flight campaign improved on those tests by flying the AAS on a relevant propulsive vehicle in a trajectory that mimics the one that will be flown to land on the Moon.

posted 04-30-2014 12:00 PM               

Astrobotic Partners With NASA to Develop Commercial Robotic Lunar Landing Capability

Astrobotic Technology has announced a new partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for development of robotic lunar landing capability.

Astrobotic will partner with NASA under the new Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative. CATALYST called for partnership proposals to develop commercial robotic lunar landers that could be integrated with U.S. launch vehicles to deliver NASA's cargo to the lunar surface. Commercial lunar transportation capabilities could support science and exploration objectives, such as sample returns, geophysical network deployment, resource prospecting, and technology demonstrations.

"Moon landing once symbolized the pinnacle of human achievement," said William "Red" Whittaker, Astrobotic's Chairman. "CATALYST now evolves that to enterprise and to the remarkable capability that is possible through this public-private partnership. CATALYST will build a bright future combining a mix of new resourcefulness with legacy and innovation."

Astrobotic was selected by a panel of experts from NASA based on its proposal to develop a commercially viable lunar cargo delivery capability. Proposals were judged on the achievability of lander development and performance, and likelihood of success. Astrobotic will now negotiate a Space Act Agreement with NASA that makes personnel, facilities, and expertise available to the company to support its lunar lander development.

According to John Thornton, Astrobotic's CEO, "This NASA partnership, modeled after the highly successful Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, will extend the reach of commercial capabilities to the Moon. Astrobotic is making it possible to buy lunar delivery and utility services at a fraction of the cost. Together with NASA, we will create a new era that makes space available to everyone." Astrobotic was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2008, and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA.

posted 06-26-2014 12:00 PM               

Astrobotic Technology and Masten Space Systems perform visually guided precision landing

Astrobotic Technology and Masten Space Systems announced today that the Astrobotic Autolanding System (AAS) successfully directed the Xombie vertical-takeoff vertical-landing suborbital rocket in a closed-loop test on June 20, 2014. In this technology demonstration, a computer vision system scanned the landscape, selected a landing spot, and directed a rocket-powered lander to a safe touchdown point, all without a human operator. The flight test was funded by the Flight Opportunities Program of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate and conducted at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, CA.

Future NASA and commercial missions will likely target destinations with challenging topography and limited communication, such as unmapped asteroids, surface rendezvous sites for sample return, and terrain features like polar peaks, crater rims, and skylights on Mars and the Moon. The Astrobotic Autolanding System (AAS) autonomously selects a landing location for a robotic spacecraft to safely land at a precise location, a capability that is critical for landing in such hazardous terrain.

Unlike typical drone landings, which rely on GPS, the AAS uses a technique called Terrain Relative Navigation to precisely track the spacecraft's location and attitude using only cameras and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). This is necessary in environments where GPS is not available, like the Moon. The AAS then uses LIDAR to detect hazards and select a landing point. "Conceptually, this is like the Apollo missions where the astronauts navigated to a safe landing by looking out the window of the LEM," said Kevin Peterson, Astrobotic's CTO. "In this case, we have an onboard computer instead of an astronaut, and the cameras, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), and software are so precise that they can track the craft's location to within a few meters."

Developing navigation and hazard avoidance for a self-landing, rocket-powered spacecraft on Earth is challenging, due to the need to test in the same operating conditions that the system would encounter in a planetary landing. Astrobotic and Masten collaborated on a framework that enabled the test flight without prior knowledge of exactly where the rocket would choose to land. Astrobotic's AAS scanned the landscape and selected a safe landing point. Masten's onboard flight system received input from the Astrobotic vision and navigation system, validated the input, and accepted the selection of a path to the touchdown point. The flexible architecture enables flight testing while simultaneously limiting risk to vehicle, payload, and people. The successful flight was the capstone of only a few months of work together.

Masten's CEO Sean Mahoney said, "Today was a great demonstration of how a rocket powered lander can select a safe landing site without human intervention. There are so many innovations on display in this flight campaign from both teams that it really drives home the reality that barriers to space access are falling."

This successful closed-loop flight was an end-to-end validation of the Astrobotic Autolanding System's precision landing capability in a relevant flight environment. The development focus will now shift to implementing the AAS with space-rated sensors and avionics in order to land Astrobotic's Griffin lander safely on the Moon.

Masten's terrestrial rocket testbed next takes to flight later this year in support of future rocket landing technologies, while the company continues to build the next generation of vertical take off/vertical landing vehicles.

posted 12-16-2014 08:29 AM               

Team Astrobotic Wins Two Google Lunar XPRIZE Milestone Prizes

Team Upgrades Griffin Lander for First Lunar Flight in 2016

The Google Lunar XPRIZE announced today that Team Astrobotic has won two separate Milestone Prize awards, one for imaging subsystems and one for mobility subsystems, after prize judges concluded that the technologies proved to overcome key technical risks.

Astrobotic's imaging system development for the Milestone Prize fabricated a protoflight imaging subsystem, and tested optics and imaging electronics for flight vibration and vacuum environments. Astrobotic demonstrated that the camera head could operate in thermal vacuum and capture, compress, and transmit high-definition video in lunar-relevant terrain and lighting. This imaging milestone was awarded with a $250,000 prize.

The Carnegie Mellon University developed Andy Rover secured the mobility milestone for demonstrating that Andy could survive the vacuum, high radiation and extreme cold of the Moon. The team also had to show that the robot could complete – and prove it completed – a 500-meter traverse on the lunar surface, one of the conditions for winning the Google Lunar XPRIZE. The team received an additional $500,000 for securing the mobility milestone.

The Astrobotic Team will utilize the $750,000 award to continue the development of both technologies for the first commercialized lunar landing. Astrobotic plans to fly during the second half of 2016, with the target range of the summer of 2016. Along with continuous developments in the areas of mobility and imaging, Astrobotic will modify the propulsion system by utilizing green propellant that permits for more reliable terrestrial testing prior to the first launch.

"The award of these Milestone Prizes is evidence that the partnership between Astrobotic and Carnegie Mellon is powerful and that our technologies are setting the pace for the Google Lunar XPRIZE teams," said John Thornton, Astrobotic's CEO. "We feel confident that we can land on the moon in 2016 and show that a private company can set the course for future lunar exploration.