This afternoon, commercial space company Astrobotic unveiled its nearly complete robotic lunar lander, designed to take payloads for paying customers like NASA to the surface of the Moon. It marks the first time the company has shown the mostly finished flight hardware for the lander ahead of its launch, tentatively scheduled for late this year.<\/p>\n

Called the Peregrine Lunar Lander, the spacecraft is roughly the size of a squat refrigerator, standing just over six feet tall. Five main engines mounted on the lander\u2019s base will help navigate the vehicle through space and eventually allow the vehicle to touch down on the surface of the Moon. The vehicle has various locations it can store mounted payloads for experiments designed to take advantage of the lunar environment and customers who just want their products on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n