• NASA JPL Shakes Things Up Testing Future Commercial Lunar Spacecraft Your browser cannot play the provided video file(s). • A time-lapse video recorded at JPL in October shows engineers and technicians moving and attaching a full-scale model of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander on top of two lunar orbiters. • The full stack was then subjected to a vibration test that mimics the violent action of rocket launch. • As Firefly Aerospace prepares to follow its successful soft landing on the Moon, an engineering model for its next lander is being put through its paces. • The same historic facilities that some 50 years ago prepared NASA’s twin Voyager probes for their ongoing interstellar odyssey are helping to ready a towering commercial spacecraft for a journey to the Moon. • Launches involve brutal shaking and astonishingly loud noises, and testing in these facilities mimics those conditions to help ensure mission hardware can survive the ordeal.
Article Summaries:
- NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is applying its century‑old Environmental Test Laboratory to the next commercial lunar mission. The lab, which has historically prepared spacecraft from the Voyager probes to the Perseverance rover, is now testing Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 2-a dual‑spacecraft stack that will launch to the Moon’s far side as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and Artemis program. Engineers used a structural qualification unit to subject the full stack to vibration, acoustic, temperature and other harsh launch conditions, ensuring the hardware can survive the journey. The tests support a 2026 launch under CLPS.
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