Astrobotic resumes suborbital test flights of assets purchased from Masten bankruptcy
The startup lunar landing company Astrobotic has resumed flights and testing of the suborbital spacecraft built by the company Masten Space Systems and obtained when that company went bankrupt.
Astrobotic announced Oct. 10 that it completed the first campaign of test flights by Xodiac, a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing vehicle, since acquiring it and other Masten Space Systems assets last year. Xodiac conducted four flights from Mojave, California, hovering just off the ground to test plume-surface interactions ahead of future lunar landing missions, supporting research by the University of Central Florida.
Xodiac was built several years ago by Masten Space Systems, based in Mojave, and made more than 150 low-altitude flights for a variety of technology demonstration investigations. However, the company filed for bankruptcy in July 2022 and its assets acquired by Astrobotic that September for $4.5 million.
Xodiac is now part of Astobotic’s Propulsion and Test Department, which includes other assets from Masten Space Systems as well as many of its former employees, who say they have picked up where they left off before the bankruptcy.
Astrobotic has also resumed development work on a larger Masten suborbital spacecraft, Xogdor, also designed to launch and land vertically, but actually reach space.
Because Astrobotic is mostly focused on developing lunar landers, Masten’s technology is perfect for refining that capability for landing on the Moon. It is also ideal should Astrobotic decide to develop a reusable rocket for launch from Earth.
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The startup lunar landing company Astrobotic has resumed flights and testing of the suborbital spacecraft built by the company Masten Space Systems and obtained when that company went bankrupt.
Astrobotic announced Oct. 10 that it completed the first campaign of test flights by Xodiac, a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing vehicle, since acquiring it and other Masten Space Systems assets last year. Xodiac conducted four flights from Mojave, California, hovering just off the ground to test plume-surface interactions ahead of future lunar landing missions, supporting research by the University of Central Florida.
Xodiac was built several years ago by Masten Space Systems, based in Mojave, and made more than 150 low-altitude flights for a variety of technology demonstration investigations. However, the company filed for bankruptcy in July 2022 and its assets acquired by Astrobotic that September for $4.5 million.
Xodiac is now part of Astobotic’s Propulsion and Test Department, which includes other assets from Masten Space Systems as well as many of its former employees, who say they have picked up where they left off before the bankruptcy.
Astrobotic has also resumed development work on a larger Masten suborbital spacecraft, Xogdor, also designed to launch and land vertically, but actually reach space.
Because Astrobotic is mostly focused on developing lunar landers, Masten’s technology is perfect for refining that capability for landing on the Moon. It is also ideal should Astrobotic decide to develop a reusable rocket for launch from Earth.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Such technology would also be useful as a lunar point to point “jeep” carrying payloads and potentially people from site to site on the moon. Establish a major base and lunar “port” and use the “jeep” to carry out exploration and prospecting at distant sites.