![\"Astrobotic](\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/astro_C_638326867955411609.png\")
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Astrobotic, a leader in vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) reusable rockets, successfully completed a flight test campaign for the University of Central Florida (UCF) last week at the company\u2019s facility in Mojave, CA. <\/p>\n
The campaign consisted of four flights aboard Astrobotic\u2019s Xodiac VTVL rocket to test UCF\u2019s Ejecta STORM laser sensor, which was developed by Dr. Phil Metzger to study plume-surface interactions (PSI) between a rocket plume and lunar regolith. This test campaign will provide valuable data for researchers, including Dr. Metzger, as they seek to better understand PSI for humanity\u2019s return to the Moon under NASA\u2019s Artemis program. <\/p>\n
The test flight was conducted by Astrobotic\u2019s Propulsion & Test Department whose workforce, vehicles, and assets came from Masten Space Systems, which Astrobotic acquired last September. Xodiac is Astrobotic\u2019s fourth-generation rocket-powered terrestrial lander that simulates lunar and planetary landings, tests flight systems and hardware in the loop, retires risk, and advances technology readiness for terrestrial and space applications. Last week\u2019s successful campaign continues the vehicle\u2019s flight heritage of 150+ successful flights\u2014more than any other active rocket\u2014with 100% mission success. The campaign also marked the twentieth anniversary of Masten\u2019s founding, which led to several historic milestones in reusable rocketry and over 600 successful VTVL flights. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to be flying again. I\u2019m thrilled that we can continue to provide this unique flight test capability for our customers as part of Astrobotic. We designed Xodiac for maximum reusability, and the fact that we\u2019re still flying the same vehicle eight years later says a lot about Xodiac\u2018s durability and the value of the services it provides,\u201d said David Masten, Chief Engineer for Astrobotic\u2019s Propulsion & Test Department<\/strong>. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m grateful for our talented team and supportive management who have helped us pick back up right where we left off,\u201d said Stefan Lamb, Astrobotic\u2019s Xodiac Launch Conductor<\/strong>. \u201cJoining Astrobotic has opened up a whole new set of test opportunities for us. Our team has been working hard to resume flight operations and continue to provide exceptional service to our customers as well as other departments within the company.\u201c<\/p>\n Xodiac\u2019s return to flight was made possible by the test team led by Lamb and Masten. With the completion of this milestone, Astrobotic will turn its attention to flying its 2023 customer manifest, which includes test campaigns for NASA and Draper, and supporting space technology innovators as they pursue grants for future flight testing. <\/p>\n Astrobotic\u2019s next Xodiac campaign will provide flight testing for the three winning teams of the TechLeap Prize, which is managed by NASA\u2019s Flight Opportunities program. These teams have developed promising systems to detect hazards from an altitude of at least 250 meters and process the data in real time to help spacecraft land safely in the dark. Xodiac will provide these teams an opportunity to demonstrate their systems in a realistic night-flight environment aboard an actual rocket lander. <\/p>\n Xodiac is also scheduled to fly campaigns in 2024 for NASA, San Diego State University, and Astrobotics\u2019s Space Robotics department. The latter campaign will test Astrobotic\u2019s novel hazard detection and avoidance system that will help guide its Griffin lander to a soft landing on the Moon\u2019s south pole in late 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Astrobotic, a leader in vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) reusable rockets, successfully completed a flight test campaign for the University of Central Florida (UCF) last week at the company\u2019s facility in Mojave, CA. The campaign consisted of four flights aboard Astrobotic\u2019s Xodiac VTVL rocket to test UCF\u2019s Ejecta STORM laser sensor, which was developed by Dr. Phil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26,25,20],"class_list":["post-8113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ground","tag-launch","tag-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}