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Astrobotic conducts NASA Marshall hot-fire tests of Chakram engine prototype for lunar lander power

Astrobotic tested one of its two Chakram engine prototypes with a continuous 300-second hot-fire at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The run is part of a broader prototype test campaign intended to validate power-plant performance for future Moon missions.

Discovered 2026-04-23T05:20:30.703779-07:00 | 2026-04-23T05:20:30.703779-07:00

Briefing

What Hype is tracking

The 300-second continuous hot-fire at NASA Marshall is a propulsion-relevant validation step for a lunar mission power-plant, directly informing readiness risk on the engine prototype used in Moon mission architecture.
By tying hot-fire testing to NASA test infrastructure at Marshall, the cluster reflects how commercial lunar propulsion development is increasingly grounded in government-supported test campaigns (see related NASA lunar-testing focus in NASA-led plan to test lunar material flammability—challenging Earth-based fire screening standard).
Success (or issues) from these prototype burns will affect schedule and technical tradeoffs for future lander propulsion performance margins, impacting commercial provider timelines and integration planning.

Reported By

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