Jaret Matthews

NASA leadership stopped by Astrolab to check out FLIP before it heads to Cape Canaveral for launch later this year. NASA Program Manager for the Moon Base Carlos García-Galán and Chief Architect for the Moon Base Nujoud Merancy toured our clean room with Astrolab CEO Jaret Matthews and gave our rover a send-off.

With FLIP rover vibration testing completed successfully last month, let's dive into the results. The sounds you are hearing in the background of this video were designed from live sounds captured during the week and a half of vibe testing. During these tests the rover was subjected to the highest structural loads and most stressful vibration environment it will ever experience. Launch will be less stressful than what it has already survived. Health checks during and after testing show that FLIP came out the other side in pristine condition. Before tests like this, the engineering team makes approximations about what the hardware can handle. Now that they have accelerometer data, the team is correlating the structural model with the data from the test. This will allow the engineers to conduct the final round of structural analysis to certify the rover for launch. One more step towards the launch pad and lunar surface.

FLIP Rover Vibration Testing: Complete  Full analysis of the data to come, but all initial indications from the test are positive. Another major hurdle on the path to the launch cleared.

Mass properties testing. Center of gravity and moments of inertia confirmed at @elementdefense. The kind of data that doesn’t make headlines, until it does. One more milestone closer to launch.

A year and a half ago our FLIP rover was just an idea for a tech demo. This past week, it deployed its solar panel for the first time. The tight timeline for FLIP has put our team to the test but also proved we can build and deliver space-ready hardware.

Say cheese!📸 Our FLIP rover is ready to snap pics on its lunar trip! The rover has two solar panel mast-mounted cameras provided by Canadensys, providing 360 views. This picture of our team was taken by one of those cameras after the first vehicle-controlled solar array deploy.

Our FLEX rover is designed to fly on and work alongside a variety of lunar landers, such as Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1. FLEX is the last mile lunar delivery solution, ready to work on cargo operations, handling payloads brought by landers to the lunar surface.

Thanks to @CBSMornings for the feature on FLEX this morning and coming out for a rover test drive!

From sandbox to lunar surface🌔Here’s how our FLIP rover’s successful egress tests on Earth translate to what it will do on the Moon. This test featured tilted ramps for teams to test different landing orientations to ensure we can successfully egress under many conditions.

Egress test successful! Last week our FLIP test vehicle passed a major test: dismounting from our test fixture which replicates the dismount the rover will make from the Griffin lander onto the lunar surface. This egress involves a controlled descent down a steep ramp, and a transfer to the Moon. The tether system wrapped around the rover’s rear wheels worked as intended to enable a clean dismount for the test vehicle. Our FLIP rover serves as a technology demonstration mission, testing out the hardware and software that will power our FLEX rover on the Moon during future missions.

New and improved, meet the latest iteration of FLEX! Our FLEX rover has been through years of testing as we refined everything from its sensors to the crew stand. We’re excited to see the rover continue to evolve into the final version that will head to the Moon.

A rover doesn’t come together overnight. Astrolab teams worked for months designing and assembling our FLIP test vehicle. This time-lapse shows the two days of work that led up to the test vehicle’s first drive in the Astrolab cleanroom. But there are many more drives to come!

FLEX has landed on the Sphere! We were thrilled to be mentioned by HPE CEO Antonio Neri during his keynote address this week at the #HPEDiscover event in Las Vegas. We are excited to be partnering with @HPE to bring their computing technology to the lunar surface.

We spy FLEX and @endeffector at #HPEDiscover this week!

It was an honor to have Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot, Brigadier General Charlie Duke, USAF (Ret) come visit FLEX last week at Space Symposium! It’s incredible to share our lunar rover with lunar pioneers like him. – at Clear Lake Shores, TX

Elevating Mission 1 in 2024: In 2023 we made headlines. Join us in 2024, as we continue building the foundations of the lunar economy. Reserve your payload on Mission 1:  astrolab.space/mission1 #astrolab #newspaceeconomy #lunareconomy