Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Golden Spike taps Northrup Grumman to design manned lunar lander

The Altair lunar lander, shelved by Congress together with most components of the late Constellation program, in one of many manned and unmanned configurations [NASA/Frassinito & Associates].
Ben Evans
AmericaSpace

Officially revealed to the world barely a month ago, the Golden Spike Company last week announced a contract with aerospace giant Northrop Grumman to begin design work on a lunar landing vehicle which could see astronauts back on the surface of the Moon by 2020. Although Golden Spike—founded by Alan Stern, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in 2007–2008 and Principal Investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and including former Apollo Flight Director Gerry Griffin as Chair of the Board—remains in what it calls “Phase A” of its forward path, the contract with the only company to have a proven track record of building human-rated lunar landers is a significant advance and brings the goal of bootprints on the Moon closer.

Read the full article HERE.

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