Tag Archives: spacecraft

Astrolab FLEX Rover ready to support humans and transport cargo on moon and Mars

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Living on another planet will be possible someday. It may not happen in our lifetime, but we can do our part for the next generation by preparing well for the possibility. Who knows, we may see that as technology is well advancing by leaps and bounds.

Moon or Mars—where do you want to live? We can’t really say where the best place to live is, but we find it fun and exciting to imagine life in either of the two. You already have the Y3 Space-X Running Shoes for Mars and the Vollebak Mars Gear. Now let’s talk about what vehicle you will be driving. It can be the NASA Bike or the Star Wars-inspired Pandemax or this new project from Astrolab.

Designer: Astrolab

Astrolab FLEX Rover Spacecraft

The Astrolab FLEX Rover may be available soon as it is currently being developed. It is not just a concept, but a company is already building the FLEX (short Flexible Logistics and Exploration). It doesn’t look like a futuristic or a fancy sports car, but it is designed to transport cargo and humans on the moon or Mars.

The Astrolab FLEX rover is designed for humans to explore the place freely. It can be a rover or a lander, depending on a person’s need anywhere in the solar system. It boasts a modular payload interface that can support intermodal transportation. Astrolab has begun exploring solutions on living and operating on other planets. The company aims to design, build, and run a fleet of rovers someday.

Chris Hadfield Astrolab FLEX Rover

Astrolab FLEX Rover Design

The FLEX rover supports exploration, robotic science, construction, logistics, resource utilization, and human operations on Mars or the moon. It can seat two astronauts on a removable deck and has a deck that can carry 3m³ of cargo. It comes with navigation and hazard detection sensors for semi-autonomous operations. In addition, it has solar panels to keep the vehicle powered.

The wheels are ready for soft soil or the kind found on the moon or Mars. It’s like something we’ve seen in the movies before, but we know it’s really being built this time. As described, it has a versatile design that allows adaptive utility, last-mile cargo delivery, and crew transport in one vehicle.

Chris Hadfield Astrolab FLEX Rover

Astrolab FLEX Rover on Mars

Astrolab believes in planetary discovery and exploration, and it is something the generation of our children may get to experience. The video above shows that the Astrolab FLEX Rover may be part of that future as a prototype is now fully operational. Chris Hadfield, a retired NASA astronaut, tested the FLEX and shared with us its role in the future.

Astrolab FLEX Rover Details

Astrolab FLEX Rover NASA Astronaut Chris Hadfield

Hadfield, who is also an advisory board member of Astrolab, said, “it was not only a joy to drive FLEX but also see its size, capability and get an intuitive sense of what this rover can do.” He said equipment needs to change as we transition from the Apollo era to the future when we can live on the moon. “When we settle somewhere, we don’t just need to get people from one place to another, but we need to move hardware, cargo, life support equipment, and more. And it’s all dependent on mobility,” the astronaut also said.

Astrolab FLEX Rover on Moon

Astrolab FLEX Rover Features

Astrolab FLEX Rover Prototype

Astrolab FLEX Rover Testing

Astrolab FLEX Rover Astronaut

The post Astrolab FLEX Rover ready to support humans and transport cargo on moon and Mars first appeared on Yanko Design.

Virgin Galactic’s shimmering, mirror-finished SpaceShip III readies for next-gen space flights!

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Richard Branson has his goals set up high alongside Elon Musk for space travel, and there’s a new chapter added to the Virgin Galactic book that looks to rewrite the history of humankind, as far as venturing out into the limitless bounds of space are concerned. In that same quest, Virgin Galactic has unveiled their new space plane called VSS Imagine – the first inclusion of the SpaceShip III fleet of suborbital vehicles. While at heart, the Spaceship III is the same as the SpaceShipTwo (known as VSS Unity), the only difference is the ability to be ready for re-flights for a much faster turnaround time.

Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier emphasized that the new spacecraft is designed (new modular design approach) in a way to “pull a panel off to get to an area that we might not have been able to get to in an easy fashion before.” Something that could not be possible with the SpaceShipTwo’ VSS Unity’. The subtle design improvements and overall weight reduction give Virgin Atlantic the flexibility to shift focus to production-oriented operations with plans to debut customer flight by the early half of 2022. To this end, they have planned a flight glide test of VSS Imagine from the larger mothership VMS Eve this summer as it glides back to the safety of land at Virgin Atlantic’s Spaceport America facility in New Mexico.

VSS Imagine is draped in a shiny reflective mirror-like material to reflect the mesmerizing bounds of the Earth and space while inherently providing thermal protection in flight. According to Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, the spaceship will hopefully change the perspective of space travellers when they return back home, and fill them with rejuvenating ideas to make a positive change to the planet. “Our goal is to have 400 flights from each spaceport every year,” Richard said. That’s going to be achievable with a third and fourth generation of spaceships, and Virgin Galactic is already ramping up its efforts for the same.

To sum it up, as Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said, “The livery is pretty amazing. It creates quite a contrast between the Earth and the sky. It also reflects the planet when we’re in space.”

Designer: Virgin Galactic