Vacuum, Heat and Launch Noise: Testing a Commercial Moon Lander

Before a lander gets to the Moon, it has to survive being shaken, frozen and cooked on the ground. NASA says Voyager Technologies' Griffin-1 went through tests at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory that simulated the extreme temperatures and vacuum of space, along with the intense shaking and roar of launch, and that the results show the spacecraft is ready to handle the rigors of space exploration. The lander sits inside NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, within the agency's Moon Base Program, and is expected to launch later this year. The structure of the arrangement is the interesting part: a commercial vehicle, qualified on the ground at a government lab, flying on a milestone schedule measured in months.