![\"Astrobotic](\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/MastenSpaceCover_637988275041457778.png\")
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Astrobotic has announced the acquisition of Masten Space Systems, a pioneering space technologies company with industry-unique suborbital payload testing services, which include a heritage of more than 600 vertical takeoffs and landing (VTVL) rocket flights. The acquisition also includes Masten\u2019s portfolio of advanced space technology development programs advanced over 18 years of operations.<\/p>\n
Astrobotic and Masten\u2019s combined workforce of more than 200 employees will continue operations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The combined company will maintain suborbital flight operations at Masten\u2019s test sites at Mojave, with plans to continue offering the space industry a key testing site for hot fire rocket tests.<\/p>\n
Masten established itself as a leader in VTVL innovation in 2009 when it won first prize in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander XCHALLENGE. That win helped lay the foundation for Masten\u2019s one-of-a-kind VTVL flight program, which has demonstrated industry-leading landing precision and rapid reusability over its 600+ VTVL flights to date. Since 2011, Masten has served NASA\u2019s Flight Opportunities Program, providing flights to NASA-sponsored payloads to prepare them for spaceflight. Masten rockets have flown payloads for current and future lunar and interplanetary missions, including Astrobotic\u2019s OPAL terrain relative navigation system, Honeybee Robotics\u2019 PlanetVac system, and NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory\u2019s lander vision system for the Mars Curiosity mission.<\/p>\n
At Astrobotic, the former Masten team will continue to offer and develop its unique test capabilities, including providing VTVL test flights for commercial and government customers. Astrobotic plans to expand these test flight offerings with the development of the next-generation Xogdor rocket, which will offer higher altitudes, longer missions, and supersonic flight for suborbital payload testing.<\/p>\n
Beyond VTVL flights, Masten\u2019s propulsion test stands will advance rocket technology for both external customers as well as Astrobotic departments. This testing infrastructure, which ranges from single-element injector testing to 25,000-pound thrust rocket engine testing to landing simulation testing will provide a variety of hot fire solutions to support Astrobotic and its customers. Astrobotic will also continue to advance Masten\u2019s space technology portfolio, which includes innovations in lunar night survival, instant landing pad construction, lunar water mining technology, and lunar infrastructure construction technologies. These new technologies are highly complementary to Astrobotic\u2019s landers, rovers, and surface system product lines.<\/p>\n
\u201cMasten\u2019s suborbital launch vehicles and propulsion test centers are national assets for the space industry. We are excited to operate and expand these services for companies, governments, and space agencies internationally,\u201d said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton. \u201cBringing these services to Astrobotic is a natural fit for our mission to make space accessible to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI started Masten with the goal of tearing down barriers to space,\u201d said David Masten, Masten\u2019s founder, and president. \u201cOn behalf of the Masten team, I am excited to join Astrobotic in our shared mission to make space accessible to the world. This combined organization will let us continue to provide important services to our customers and help us make a bigger impact on humanity\u2019s future in space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still more to iron out, but Astrobotic is confident in the value Masten\u2019s team and capabilities add to Astrobotic\u2019s already strong portfolio,\u201d added Thornton.<\/p>\n
Click here to learn about Astrobotic Space Tech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Astrobotic has announced the acquisition of Masten Space Systems, a pioneering space technologies company with industry-unique suborbital payload testing services, which include a heritage of more than 600 vertical takeoffs and landing (VTVL) rocket flights. The acquisition also includes Masten\u2019s portfolio of advanced space technology development programs advanced over 18 years of operations. Astrobotic and […]<\/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":[25,20],"class_list":["post-9177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-launch","tag-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9177"}],"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=9177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}