Monegasque, Monaco. 27 May 2023. H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco visited Venturi Group’s Monegasque headquarters. Welcomed by the Group’s President, Gildo Pastor, the Sovereign was invited to take a historic first look at the lunar rover “FLEX”, developed by Venturi Astrolab (USA) in collaboration with Venturi Lab (Switzerland) and Venturi (Monaco).
FLEX will be the largest and most advanced lunar vehicle ever made. It will be landed on the surface of the Moon by American firm SpaceX in 2026.
In three years’ time, the Monegasque Venturi Group will write the most impressive page in its history: in 2026, the FLEX (Flexible Logistics and Exploration) rover, the result of an international collaboration, will head for the Moon. The American company SpaceX will be responsible for transporting the rover, which will be the largest and most capable in the history of lunar vehicles. SpaceX will use its Starship launch and landing system to transport FLEX to the lunar surface.
The collective team includes engineers and scientists from the fields of space mobility, terrestrial and planetary robotics, industry, development, advanced technology research, electromobility, fuel cells and batteries, hydrogen storage, composite materials and processes manufacturing.
Each company provides the following expertise:
– Venturi Group in Monaco is dedicated to high performance batteries. In this, it is accompanied for the test phases by its US subsidiary, Venturi North America (Ohio, USA). This branch is located at Ohio State University and works closely with its mechanical engineering students.
– Venturi Lab creates materials resistant to extreme conditions (low temperatures and radiation), high-performance solar panels, deformable wheels and electrical control systems. It also manages relations with ESA.
– Venturi Astrolab designs the vehicle architecture, its primary structure & mechanisms, develops its software and avionics, assembles it, and conducts syvalidation testing.
The rover’s human factors and aesthetic design have been informed and inspired by designer Sacha Lakic. Lakic has a long history of collaborating on the design of Venturi Group’s innovative vehicles.
The harsh lunar environment imposes a multitude of challenges for the system. For example, FLEX must be reliable over the very long term, withstand temperatures of between -90°C and -230°C, resist radiation and be able to operate for a fortnight in the darkness of the South Pole of the Moon. There is also the constraint of the vehicle’s control modes. The rover will have to be able to traverse semi-autonomously, be piloted by the astronauts on board, be commanded from the future station in lunar orbit, and also from Earth.
Venturi Lab was co-founded in 2021 by Gildo Pastor and Dr. Antonio Delfino in Corminboeuf, in the Canton of Fribourg (Switzerland). The team is made up of experienced and passionate engineers, chemists and physicists who hold over 250 accumulated patents in the fields of electromobility, fuel cells, materials science, composite materials, processes, software engineering, computer science, space mobility and polymer science. Each engineer has over 20 years of experience in applied technology. Together they design and build new space mobility components and materials, resilient to the extreme environmental conditions of the Moon and Mars.
Gildo Pastor, President of the Venturi Group and co-founder of Venturi Lab said, “over the past two decades the Venturi Group has developed some truly unique, high performance electric vehicles. The time has come to go further and put the Venturi Group in the history books. We are proud to be a strategic partner of Venturi Astrolab in its work in designing and developing the FLEX rover. Upon completion of this mission, the FLEX rover will be the largest and most capable rover ever to travel to the Moon. This is an extraordinary achievement and one that is a highlight of my professional life, a life that has always been characterized by innovation, adventure and the realization of dreams I was told were impossible to fulfill. As important as this milestone is, I know it’s just the first of many that Venturi and Astrolab will achieve.”
According to Antonio Delfino – Director & co-founder of Venturi Lab and Member of the Venturi Astrolab Advisory Board “with this agreement between Venturi Astrolab and SpaceX, we are taking a decisive step forward, as we enter the phase of concretization and qualification of our space technologies: Venturi Astrolab’s rover will indeed be on the Moon in three years. Together with passion and determination, we will tackle the remaining technological challenges in preparation for launch in 2026.”
Jaret Matthews, founder and CEO of Venturi Astrolab said, “we have created much more than a rover for use on the Moon or Mars. FLEX is a logistics system capable of handling a wide variety of cargo. We believe that this approach will enable a permanent lunar outpost to be established on the Moon at a lower cost and in less time than expected. We are delighted that this contract with SpaceX will allow Venturi Astrolab to demonstrate the benefits of the FLEX rover and its modular payload system.”
