Griffin-1 Moon lander passes its JPL tests ahead of a Falcon Heavy launch

Griffin Mission One (Griffin-1), a commercial lunar lander built by Voyager Technologies, has passed a series of environmental tests at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. NASA says the results show the spacecraft is ready for launch, the trip through deep space and landing at the lunar south pole.

The mission

Griffin-1 flies under NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, part of the agency's Moon Base Program. It is expected to launch later this year on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

• Destination: Nobile Crater, near the Moon's south pole.
• Cargo: more than 455 kg (1,100 lb), which makes it an infrastructure-class lander.
• Payloads: 10 science and technology demonstrations from six countries, including Astrolab's FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) rover. NASA calls FLIP the largest commercial payload ever delivered to the Moon.

Months of tests

Testing started in July, after the 1,265 kg (2,789 lb) spacecraft travelled by road from Voyager's facility in Pittsburgh to JPL.

• Mass properties: engineers spun the lander on a special table to check for unexpected wobbles, which matter for navigation and landing.
• EMI/EMC: in an anechoic chamber lined with foam spikes, they made sure the lander's electronics do not interfere with each other.
• Vibration: a shaker table moved it in three directions to simulate the ride to orbit, with hundreds of sensors attached.
• Acoustics: horns powered by nitrogen gas blasted it with up to 153 decibels.
• Thermal vacuum: for about two weeks in JPL's historic 25-Foot Space Simulator, the lander went between +75 °C and −100 °C.

The same chamber has tested spacecraft since the Ranger, Surveyor, Mariner and Voyager programmes, and later Perseverance and Europa Clipper.

What's next

Griffin-1 is back at Voyager's facility for final assembly, followed by launch-readiness work and shipment to Cape Canaveral. "Seeing the spacecraft complete this demanding environmental testing is a major milestone," said Voyager executive vice president John Thornton.