Pittsburgh, PA . 12 December 2019 . Astrobotic announced that it will open a new state-of-the- art headquarters for lunar logistics in May 2020. The 47,000 square foot facility in Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood of Manchester will house the company’s spacecraft integration clean rooms, test facilities, lab spaces, rover test labs, payload operations room, and dedicated mission control. Astrobotic’s new headquarters is poised to become the epicenter for America’s return to the Moon.
“This new facility marks the next phase of Astrobotic’s growth and will be the primary hub for lunar logistics in the United States. Our headquarters will be used to design, build, and test lunar landers and rovers all under
one roof, and then operate those vehicles from our own mission control right here in Pittsburgh,” said Astrobotic CEO, John Thornton.
The facility will feature 15,000 square feet of clean room and lab space that can support up to 4 lunar lander missions simultaneously. Within the lab space, there will be environmental test facilities designed to simulate lunar and launch vehicle environments for mission hardware operations, a machine shop for parts manufacturing, a fluids lab for propulsion testing, and a high-power lab for battery assembly and testing. In addition to these lander mission development capabilities, the new facility will feature a space mobility and lunar simulant lab, where mobile rovers can test drive in synthetic lunar regolith.
Once customer payload integration is completed, finished lunar landers and rovers will be transported to Cape Canaveral for integration with launch vehicle. Following launch, Astrobotic will operate the mission from its Pittsburgh-headquartered mission control including the landing, power, communications and rover operations on the Moon.
The headquarters will be a short walk from the Carnegie Science Center and Heinz Field, and promises to be a new landmark in Western Pennsylvania. The new facility will host Astrobotic’s growing workforce, which has tripled in the last 4 months and continues to expand
at a rapid pace.
“Only three nations have landed on the surface of the Moon.” said Thornton, “Pittsburgh Nation will be the next.”
